


The music or the misery

by carbonbased000



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, High Fidelity (2000), High Fidelity (TV)
Genre: 2000s, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Chicago I guess, Exes, M/M, Sharing Clothes, Slow Burn, indie rock, lots of exes, so many concerts, top five everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carbonbased000/pseuds/carbonbased000
Summary: What came first, the music or the misery? The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to the sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives.— Nick Hornby,High Fidelity
Relationships: Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 182
Kudos: 71





	1. Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from _High Fidelity_ via Pete Wentz quoting _High Fidelity_ in this bonus track that totally should have been an official track on _From Under the Cork Tree_.
> 
> This AU is inspired by a mix of every version of _High Fidelity_ — the 1995 book by Nick Hornby; the 2000 movie directed by Stephen Frears starring John Cusack; and especially the _amazing_ genderbent 2020 tv series starring Zoe Kravitz. *sighs*
> 
> Could I write a High Fidelity AU and not make a playlist?? No I couldn’t.
> 
>   
>    
> 

> **regretwillalwaysgetyouintheend.blogspot.com/**
> 
> 2/10/2006 - 3:19 AM CST
> 
> i’m not even too sure what i am writing for.  
>  not breaking down, not exactly-- lying in bed watching the ceiling and the crack in it that looks like vampire fangs or maybe the line of a heart rate monitor, heartbreak monitor-- but as i said, not breaking down. just thinking about the past, feeling nostalgic for disaster i guess. no reason. i don’t know if anyone is reading this, i fucking hope not cause i tend to run my mouth/heart without thinking too much about it. sometimes i need (alright alright) slow down. anyway. make a list, like joe always says, “make a list and you’ll feel better.” here’s one then, not songs or books or 80s movies though-- my desert-island all-time top five of my most memorable break-ups, in chronological order:
> 
> 1\. laura  
>  2\. heather  
>  3\. ashlee  
>  4\. chris  
>  5\. mikey 

  


_~_

  


##### 1\. Laura 

I was almost fifteen — well, fourteen and a half, but when you’re a kid you’re always almost the age you’re going to be on your next birthday, right, ‘cause you can’t fucking wait to be older so you can watch R-rated movies, drive, buy alcohol, or whatever essential developmental milestone you need to reach next; until you stop for a minute and realize you’re out of college and out of firsts and you start wondering what the fuck you were in such a rush for — and I felt like something was missing. 

I’d had spin-the-bottle kisses at Tim’s parties, I’d awkwardly fooled around with some local girl on vacation in Jersey the previous summer, but I’d never had a kiss that meant something, with a girl that meant something. 

Laura meant something — we had English together, and I fell in love with the pins on her black surplus army bag before I’d even memorized her face. She had fire-red hair, wore eyeliner and dark purple lipstick and Doc Martens every single day. Her all-time top five favorite bands were the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Faith No More, and Jane’s Addiction. Was she even real? That’s what I kept asking Chris. (He wasn’t a fan. Laura didn’t have any real boobs, which was the only point of girls according to Chris.)

In class, I watched her like a little creep, silently drawing hearts of thorns in the margins of my notebooks, and I’m sure that would have been it for the rest of the school year, except one Saturday, in January, she came to see the game. 

I saw her in the bleachers and proceeded to score four goals, feeling so much like a bird showing its colorful plumage and not even caring. She didn’t smile, she didn’t cheer — she barely clapped at the end, clearly bored, when we finally won 5 to 2 and the guys hoisted me up and carried me halfway to the locker room over their heads. 

I showered and got back out at warp speed, and asked her out still riding on that high, my hair dripping wet, tiny icicles forming in it.

The following Friday we sneaked into a midnight showing of some horror movie. We sat in the middle of the last row. As the titles started rolling, Laura put her hand on the armrest between us; I did the same, and she inched hers closer, closer, until her little finger and the side of her hand were resting against mine.In the movie, someone died screaming, but it was my heart that stopped. 

I was breathing as if I’d just run ten laps, I couldn’t even pretend to watch anymore; there was blood on the screen, but not nearly as much as that rushing to my ears as Laura whispered, “Hey,” and turned towards me. I could smell the sweet, smoky vanilla scent that went straight to my head when I got close enough to her at school, and the mint of her gum, as she opened her lips and closed her eyes and waited to be kissed. 

And I kissed her. Fuck, did I kiss her — I kissed her throughout the whole movie, and we emerged from that illicit showing holding hands, covered in hickeys, our hair and our clothes (above the waist) a glorious rumpled mess. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck — and almost got hit by an actual one as I biked home in a joyous daze. 

I stayed up all night making her a mixtape, which I premiered when she came over on Sunday afternoon while my parents were out; it was a 60-minute TDK cassette — unplugged Nirvana and Alice In Chains; solo Billy Corgan and Chris Cornell from the _Singles_ soundtrack that I not-so-secretly loved; some Pavement, even some Dylan. We listened to it twice, start to finish, which means we made out for two hours flat. Then she went home, and I gazed dreamily at the ceiling, and thought about Laura, Laura, Laura, and finally wrote her a letter.

What could that letter possibly contain, when our brief time together was spent exchanging spit and no more than a few utilitarian words — _Ow, my neck_ , and _Move your arm, yeah, that’s better,_ and _Oh shit, what time is it?_

In any case, I never gave it to her, because she wasn’t in school on Monday, nor Tuesday, nor the whole week after that. When I tried calling her at home, her mom told me Laura was ill and didn’t feel like talking on the phone. At first I was concerned, but then I started getting pissed off. When she finally came back to school two weeks later, and wouldn’t even look at me when we crossed each other in the hallways, I understood. 

“She looked like a boy, anyway,” said Chris. An attempt at comfort in his own way. “Bitch.”

I didn’t think she was a bitch, not really. She did like me at first, probably, but a few hours together were enough to make her notice there was something wrong with me. So she’d gotten out while she still could. I felt sad, and stupid for feeling sad. I trashed the letter, and the second mixtape I’d made for her while I thought she was my girlfriend, and only listened to Unbroken for the rest of freshman year. _Regret will always get you in the end_.

  


_~_

  


##### 2\. Heather

After Laura, I had a couple of girlfriends throughout high school, but the only thing I was serious about was my band. I saw my band every weekend night, we spent every holiday together and even went on vacation together the summer after graduation — a real tour, throughout the shittiest venues in the Midwest. I spent all my money on her, printed her name on everything, wrote my heart out and screamed my lungs out for her; I went straight-edge for her; I got tattoos in her honor. And obviously, after the tour, she dumped me. With the band broken up, Chris moved to Cleveland for some fucking reason. 

(I knew for what fucking reason: a girl. I didn’t like her.)

I was okay. I went to college. It was fine. I was done with hardcore and the whole scene; so fucking done with being edge. I drank, smoked, and fucked my way through my first two semesters, after which I calmed down a bit. And then I met Heather. 

It was a frat party, and she was there with her boyfriend. I’d never met any girl like her. Taller than me, and lean and strong like some of my teammates, her skin pale and freckled, her hair a shock of raven black, her eyes the biggest and coldest blue. She was — she didn’t feel like a girl. I never fucked her, not once, not even when I was the one doing the penetrating. She was always the one fucking me, ever since that first time, when we ended up in one of the upstairs bedrooms, where she pushed me down onto the mountain of coats and scarves and hats on the bed, pulled down my jeans, and gave me the most aggressive, take-no-prisoners blowjob I’d ever experienced, and before I was able to catch my breath instructed me in vivid, filthy detail on the exact way I was supposed to bring her off. I obliged, half in love already. 

She left her boyfriend, whose name I can’t even remember even though he was very much at the front and center of my thoughts for the couple of weeks where she was considering which one of us to choose — old or new. She chose me (me!) and we started spending all of our time together. We went to shows, we went to the movies — her all-time top five movies: _Beetlejuice_ , _The Crow_ , _True Romance_ , _Trainspotting_ and _The Doom Generation_ — but mostly we stayed in, at her place off-campus, and we had lots of sex. We had so much, and it was so good, that I got a little bit obsessed. She would tie me to the bed and make me watch as she got herself off — she had an exhibitionist streak a mile wide — then straddle me and tease me until I was begging. She liked it when I begged, so I did. She liked piercings, so I got pierced. But she was never mean — she always took care of me, eventually. Then she cleaned me up thoroughly like the toys she kept in a special drawer. When I spent the night at her place, I slept like a baby, which was almost as addictive as the sex.

One night — we’d been going out almost a year — we went to see the Afghan Whigs at the Metro. Some tall, dark guy made eyes at Heather over the bar as we were getting drinks — no surprise there, she was striking. But when she hooked her arm into mine and leaned slightly into me, returning his look with a rueful smile — her usual code for _sorry, I totally would, but I have a boyfriend_ — the guy gave me a once-over, and smiled back at the both of us. 

We got our beers and turned away from the bar, but then she said in my ear, “We should bring him home.” 

“Yeah?” I went along with it — sometimes we played like that, teasing each other with fantasies and scenarios that would never come to fruition. I was the AP in her Philosophy class; she was my cousin— whatever. 

This time, though, I could tell she wasn’t really playing when she said — “Yeah. He can fuck you.” 

I shuddered. She felt it. I stuttered out, “I— I can’t.” She watched me, her eyes getting cold. I felt a stabbing pain somewhere. It was my heart breaking, surely. She wanted to share me. Also she probably wanted to fuck that guy, too. Either way, I wasn’t enough. 

To be perfectly honest, I’d been waiting for something like that to happen. Heather thought monogamy was a tool of the patriarchy. I agreed — theoretically, and politically, but the actual idea of me, or her, fucking other people made me feel sick. I got high off of getting _her_ off, and I didn’t want to share the privilege. I was okay with being an object, as long as I was hers. But after that night, after she said it out loud, she started withdrawing. 

She left me a few weeks later. “Repression isn’t sexy, babe,” she told me during our last conversation. “But if you ever get out of the closet, give me a call.” 

  


_~_

  


I was crushed. I missed Heather and our kinky domesticity and the way sex with her could get me out of my mind for hours at a time and put me to sleep. My insomnia came back with a vengeance. For the first time in my life even soccer felt like an effort. I skipped practice, and when I did go my mind was elsewhere. I kept thinking about that guy, and what would have happened if I’d followed her lead that night. I watched my teammates, and poked at my own insides for any signs of desire. Two issues there — jocks weren’t exactly my type, and I was so drained and exhausted that I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone touching me. 

I failed a couple of tests. Then I failed a class. I started skipping practice more often than not. I didn’t sleep, but stayed in bed anyway. What did I do all day? I’m not sure. What I know is when I woke up, after a couple of months of darkness, I found to my surprise I’d lost my scholarship, and didn’t give a shit. 

Anyway, here’s how not to plan a career: a) get dumped by girlfriend; b) lose scholarship; c) go to work in shitty record store; e) stay in shitty record store for rest of life. Though it’s my own record store, now — mine, Joe’s, and Travie’s. So my Monday to Saturday, for the past five years, has been Joe attempting to make top-five lists out of every fucking thing, Travie coming in late and making fun of my hair or Joe’s sweatshirt or the CD we’re playing, and occasionally — seriously, not nearly as often as I’d like — selling some vinyl or a CD or some merch to an actual customer. 

_Three imaginary boys_. I mean, we’re real, like — as far as anyone can be. That’s just the name of the store. Like the Cure song, obviously. 

Where was I? Oh, right. Single and sexually confused at twenty-five. Look, I know that twenty-something guys are normally not too worried about dying alone and being found half-eaten by cats, especially if they don’t even _have_ cats, but I’ve never claimed normalcy. I felt terminally lonely. I didn’t want to sleep alone ever again. I wanted a fucking girlfriend. And for once in my life, I was in luck. 

  


_~_

  


##### 3\. Ashlee

For a couple of years, around the beginning of the new millennium, I was a DJ at a club in Lincoln Park and it was there I met Ashlee. She came up to my booth and requested _Rock Your Body_. (For reference, I believe I was playing [the White Stripes](https://open.spotify.com/track/1PnuVfURSyhhOI2NCXTLSF?si=9lgVJ76ATTOIdQBs3VkkkA).) 

Reader, I played it. 

Ashlee was prom-queen pretty, Barbie-blonde, white like a picket fence — I went all the fuck in. Took her on elaborate dates. Bought her elaborate gifts. Made her elaborate playlists (that I’m not sure she ever listened to.) She’d just graduated college, majoring in Communication, and sometimes I felt like she was trying out on me some of those persuasive strategies. Anyway, she was living in a huge apartment with four other girls and she couldn’t stand even one of them. She moved in with me in a matter of months. 

We took turns cooking, even though she only knew how to make French toast. We made love (a wording I’d never used before). We went to the farmer’s market. We went to Ikea to get a new bed, and I made her laugh until she had tears in her eyes, making the worst puns I could think of as we tried out mattresses. We liked staying in more than going out. I basically stopped going to shows. Joe and Travie, used to the pleasure of my company and my help getting them on guest lists, grumbled. Joe started grumbling less when he got a girlfriend, too. Travie _hated_ Ashlee with a passion. I still don’t know exactly why.

(Well, maybe I can guess — for example, she thought bisexuality wasn’t a thing, like — you just had to _pick_ _one_ , right? “Confused” wasn’t a sexual orientation. She _might_ have said this one time at the store in front of Travie who, at that time, had a boyfriend.)

Around our second Christmas together, Ashlee’s period was late, and the topic of marriage came up. I behaved like a mature and supportive boyfriend, and then I begged Travie to come out with me and proceeded to get so drunk I fell on my face on the frozen sidewalk outside our usual bar. After New Year’s, she got her period. I got drunk again, slightly less than the previous time, and told myself I wasn’t celebrating. 

Ashlee started looking at babies a certain way. I listened to Radiohead more than I should have. Drank _way_ more than I should have. 

After the pregnancy scare we started playing house even harder — the thing is, it was so _easy_. I could call my mom and recite a sitcom script of _how’s work_ and _how’s Ash_ and _how’s dad_ without hearing a single disappointed sigh. Sunday lunch at our folks’ with no awkward questions, no surprises. It was easy like fresh water, like taking a test where you’ve memorized every question and every answer; like reading lines from a script, and it doesn’t even matter that you’re a terrible actor because everyone just wants to buy it and buy it and _buy it_. It was so easy that I blinked and it’d been three years, I was standing in our store one Friday morning, and Joe was asking, “You’re coming to the Metro tonight?”

“Who’s playing?”

“Uhm, that Irish band.”

“Franz Ferdinand, you mean?”

“Yeah, them.”

I was tempted. Ashlee was out of town for a bachelorette party. We’d been playing that album a lot over the past couple of weeks and it was pretty amazing. “Maybe,” I said. “They’re Scottish, though.”

“No, no, I’m telling you, they’re from Glasgow.”

“Which is in Scotland, dude.”

Why does every pivotal moment in my stupid life have to happen at the fucking Metro?

  


_~_

  


Oh, right, I was supposed to talk about Chris, but you know what? That was just a friendship break-up, and I’ve just decided those don’t count. (Top five friendship break-up songs: _Atmosphere_ by Joy Division; _Look Back and Laugh_ by Minor Threat; _What Difference Does It Make?_ by The Smiths; _Don’t Speak_ by No Doubt — I know —; _We Used to Be Friends_ by the Dandy Warhols — look, _I know_ —; _Box Full of Letters_ by Wilco.) My heartbreak list, my rules. Besides, we both knew I was going to talk about you, right? I am _so_ predictable. 

  


##### 5\. Mikey

The first song Franz Ferdinand played that night was _[Cheating on You](https://open.spotify.com/track/5M78xMalmTo7SlfubIAyed?si=W2Eb2of5RIeUU-T5AcMuAw)_ , and really, it was too fitting. When we got to the Metro, I found out Joe had invited his friend Ray, a man who shared his hairstyle and passion for guitar solos. Ray had in turn invited a friend of his who’d just moved here from Jersey. He was tall and skinny and wore an _Unknown Pleasures_ shirt, square glasses and eyeliner. He looked — he looked —

You looked at me the whole night. We got to talking before the show, and when they started playing we drifted to the stage in pairs — Joe and Ray keeping a proper manly distance, you and I letting the crowd press us closer and closer. There was this one song on the band’s album that always made me uncomfortable when it started playing in the store. “Stubble on my sticky lips,” the frontman sang, and “beautiful boys on a beautiful dancefloor,” and I looked over at you, and found you looking back, and I felt my stomach drop. 

After the show we played this ridiculous charade — do you remember? — making excuses with Joe and Ray who were going to get a drink somewhere, both of us pretending to leave separately but sticking around outside the venue as if wondering if we’d left something behind, in a silent agreement that the night couldn’t be over yet. 

You invited me back to your place with the vague promise of showing me something, a graphic novel we’d talked about; we took a taxi, sitting too close in the back seat. Small talk wasn’t cutting it anymore. I watched you climb the stairs and unlock the door and then we were standing in a semi-dark hallway, my back was against the closed door and your hands were in my hair, curling around my jaw, sliding under my t-shirt. I couldn't think straight. My mind was full of _yes_ and only that. I wanted fucking _everything_. As you kissed me, as you pressed against me shoulders to hips, as you dropped to your knees looking up at me through your lashes, before you even really touched me, I finally got what all the fuss was about. 

Later, sitting in another taxi that was taking me home just after dawn, I told myself it was just a one night stand. A lapse of judgement, wouldn’t happen again — except I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I texted you from work on Monday: _full disclosure. i have a girlfriend_.

_okay._

_when can i see u again?_

_friday?_

Then I took my nice, peaceful, carefully constructed life and fucking thrashed it. 

Ashlee seemed more outraged at the idea that I could leave her than properly hurt. She didn’t even cry. So that was a relief. She moved out. You moved in. To save on rent, you said.

I wasn’t playing house anymore. I was in love. I was being myself. I cleared out a bookshelf for your comics. I brought new CDs home that I thought you might like. We went to a lot of shows with Joe and the guys, and every other weekend we came back tipsy from a night out and fell into bed. The rest of the time, you slept in your room. You needed your space, you said. 

You weren’t _exactly_ my boyfriend — we never had a real conversation about it, right? — so I didn’t _exactly_ come out. Joe and Travie waited patiently to see what the fuck I was doing without forcing the issue. 

And then it was summer, and we went to see the Cure in Tinley Park and I ran into a friend of Heather’s from college. I introduced you and saw the whole thing unfold before my eyes — the looks, the smiles, the blushing. You exchanged numbers, and started going out, and I couldn’t even be jealous because we weren’t together. I couldn’t even bring myself to kick you out, I just got more and more miserable, listened to “Disintegration” over and over, until Travie came home with me one night after work. It was pretty fucking clear at that point that while I’d been pining after you from the next room, the whole thing had been nothing but a roomie-with-benefits arrangement to you. Travie didn’t say anything to me beforehand, just knocked on your door and then told you calmly that he didn’t give a fuck where you went, but you were moving out by the end of the month. 

  


_~_

  


Fast forward to last week, when I get an invitation in the mail, blue paper, faux-handwritten font: _With great pleasure Alicia Simmons & Michael James Way invite you to join them at the celebration of their marriage, etc. _

So this means I’ve been single for half a year, obsessing over you and what it all _meant_ and revising my whole sexuality in the process, while you’ve clearly never spared one more thought for me and now you’re getting fucking _married_.

_Dinner and dancing to follow._

I have to say, I don’t take that too badly. Do I listen to _[Somebody That I Used To Know](https://open.spotify.com/track/4xfAVJL8R7mVYbDk8a9xOY?si=oOtRzvDMS_SGvmVVLd5KiA)_ on repeat for an unhealthy amount of time over the next several days? Yes. Do I get pass-out, black-out drunk? Also yes. But like, _after that_ , it’s not too bad. I wake up. I go to work. I explain to Joe why I was such a dick for the past few days and buy him apology Starbucks. We get three customers in four hours. Then Travie gets in at 2 p.m. and tells me, “We’re gonna check out this guy playing at the Bottle tonight. You’re coming.”

It’s not the Metro, so I figure I’m fine.


	2. Reconstruction Site

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ACgUqiyYhAVJUxO5xdyND?si=ik4ZRCEOT-6qiNAq_e8y6w).

> **regretwillalwaysgetyouintheend.blogspot.com/  
>  2/11/2006 - 2:11 AM CST**
> 
> heartbreak diary, day whatever-the-fuck-its-been-six-months-get-over-it-already. 
> 
> even the worst people fall in love or at least pretend to and slow dance with you in the kitchen to the special playlist you made for them. trust me to get all tangled up in the kind of heartache that no one can even relate to. pop a couple xanax and wash them down with beer instead of whiskey cos whiskey is for actual breakups only. almost cried a hundred times for a hundred stupid reasons but didn’t. remember when you were a kid and you were curled up in the backseat and watched the sunset on the highway and your mom was driving and you got lost in your head and then you asked her, are we there yet? 
> 
> is it over yet? 

  


~

  


The Empty Bottle is so much better than the Metro. The drinks are cheaper, the music is weirder, we’re here often enough that we have dumb inside jokes with the barman. Plus — and that’s a _big_ plus — I’ve never had any fucking life-changing experiences here.

The guy we’ve come to see — Patrick Stump — is apparently some kind of genius; he’s a local, and he has a solo record coming out on an indie label, though I wonder how good he can really be since I’ve never heard of him and I’ve done basically nothing but go to shows since I was a kid. 

We get beers, and I try to make mine last, still feeling a bit debilitated from my post-wedding-invitation bender. My mind is starting to go to some not-great places, and I’m starting to feel like I’d much rather be lying on my living room floor listening to some more Elliott Smith and have a nice panic attack in the privacy of my own home, when the guy finally gets on stage. 

And the thing is — I haven’t cried. I’ve gotten drunk on straight vodka and stared out the window, working my way through the pack of cigarettes that was supposed to be my last ever and listening to the most miserable, depressing records in a collection that isn’t very joyful and lighthearted, like, on average. But I haven’t cried since I found that fucking powder blue envelope in my mailbox, I haven’t felt like it for once. Until this asshole starts strumming his acoustic guitar and sings: “ _Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road…_ ”

“What the fuck,” I say.

“Not the fucking prom song,” says Joe. 

“Right,” Travie confirms. “I’ve hated it forever.”

“Totally,” I say. “But I— kind of love it now?”

“Yeah,” they both say, and then we all stare at the stage, at this little slip of a person in a black Ziggy Stardust t-shirt and a baseball hat over too-long, poorly cut dirty blonde hair and, I’m not even kidding — with our square mile of tattoos between the three of us, Travie’s piercings in places you really don’t want to think about getting needles nearby, Joe’s— well, Joe can’t really pull off any sort of menacing look with those huge baby blues of his, but he does listen to a lot of death metal — we _sigh_. 

By the time the chorus starts, I’m weeping into the neck of my Red Stripe. There is something about this song, this guy, his voice, this night that’s making me feel all the things I’ve been trying very hard not to feel. A quick glance to my left shows a suspicious glint in Joe’s eyes and Travie sniffling into the sleeve of his hoodie. Okay, then. At least it’s not only me. 

“I know I’m not supposed to like this song,” he says when he’s done, “but uhm, I didn’t go to my prom because I was playing in some basement that night, and I guess that’s my way of— whatever,” and he trails off into a nervous chuckle that’s still musical and then fucking _blushes_. I immediately feel a burning need to snatch him up, travel back in time and take him to his prom. 

Fucking _Good Riddance._ What the hell. 

After that, we get a grip on ourselves but can’t help gravitating closer to the stage and watch, enraptured, as he plays several songs from his record. I make the executive decision then and there to get some copies for the store. At some point he ditches the guitar and plays two songs on piano, then towards the end he even whips out a violin and a fucking _trumpet_ , that he records in real time to create loops on top of which he layers the guitar parts and his singing. I’m kind of getting why Travie was throwing the word _genius_ around.

“I can play one more song for you before they kick me out,” he says eventually, smiling from under his hat. “It’s another cover, I hope you’ll hate it less than the first.”

And then he plays a stripped-down acoustic version of _Love Will Tear Us Apart_ , and I seriously think for a moment that it’s _better than the original_ , which I take as my cue to go home and finally have my mental breakdown. 

  


~

  


The next morning I look like someone who’s suffering from a very bad case of insomnia, probably because I am, and I refuse to take off my shades — either in Starbucks, where I get a triple-shot frappuccino to get me through the morning, or at work, where I find Joe has opened up the store before me — which he isn’t even supposed to do, but whatever, I’ll take it. 

Right after failing out of college but before coming to work here, in the shitty record store that would become _my_ shitty record store, I did a brief stint at a Borders. Let’s just say, I wasn’t at my best, but I mostly managed to get to work almost on time and do my various menial tasks and I had no problem with customers verbally assaulting me — I thought I deserved that and much worse, honestly — which basically made me employee of the month. After a while, though, the monotony crept up on me, and I remember one day having this lightbulb moment and thinking I was so bored I could cry, and that was when I realized I was better, or starting to be: I could _feel_ something. I could picture doing something more with my time than merely staying alive so that my mom wouldn’t be too sad. 

That was when I met Joe — or rather, met him again, because he’d often been around back when I played in Arma, helping out at the merch table sometimes, and I never forget a face. He came into the store and recognized me and we started talking about the good old days and we exchanged numbers. He was the one who told me this “indie” record store he knew was looking for a manager, which sounded more appealing. 

The owner was this guy named Rob; he was cool, and he basically let me run the store — he was almost broke, fed up, and disenchanted with the whole entrepreneur thing. After less than a year, he told me he wanted to sell, and I told him I’d take it off his hands. I got a loan from my dad — still not sure how I swung that one, to be honest — and dragged Joe and Travie into this insanity, and well. Here we are. In theory, Joe’s supposed to come in late in the morning and cover my lunch break, Travie in the afternoon and help me close up, but in practice they started coming in most of the day every day; I haven’t been able to stop them yet. 

I don’t get around to asking Joe what he’s doing here so early because I get distracted by the angel from heaven singing through the speakers. I freeze, coffee halfway to my mouth. “Is this…?”

Joe nods. I join him where he’s leaning back against the counter and mirror his pose. I take a sip. We listen in silence for a bit. It’s the voice, and the melody, and the arrangement. It’s — 

“The lyrics are pretty bad,” I say, because this guy has already made me cry once in the past twenty-four hours, and I’m kind of growing a bit resentful. 

“Hmm. No coffee today?” Joe says, and I feel immediately guilty, but then he goes on: “We talked a bit when we bought the record. I gave him a card.”

“You _what_?” I splutter, guilt fading into indignation.

“Gave him a card? Of our record store? I thought he might be interested in, you know—” and he gestures widely to encompass the records, and the CDs, and the concert posters covering the wall, “ —music?”

I don’t know why this feels so unsettling. I mutter something under my breath about this not being a place for hipsters (something patently untrue, we would be out of business _so fast_ if it weren’t for the hipsters) and Joe rolls his eyes at me. I down some more oversweet caffeine to avoid looking at him any longer. “Anyway!” I say, pointedly. “Gonna go do some paperwork.” 

I lock myself up in the office and do paperwork for real for about ten minutes and then I remember something: _Sorry for not bringing you coffee_ , I text Joe. He doesn’t reply, and I get distracted actually doing my job, and the day grinds slowly forwards. 

When the shop door jingles open sometime in the early afternoon, I’m sitting behind the counter, leafing through this month’s issue of _The Wire_. I don’t need to look up from my magazine to tell Travie, “Hey, so kind of you to stop by.”

Someone clears their throat, and I look up now with a sense of foreboding to see— yep. Patrick Stump. Apparently making the most of strange men inviting him to strange record shops. He’s bundled up in a denim jacket over two hoodies, a striped scarf, and a brown baseball hat that says _Vinyl Nerd_ which, well, quite appropriate to wear on a record store visit. I wonder if it’s a happy accident or if he did that on purpose. Underneath the hat, his hair is going every which way; he kind of needs a haircut, perhaps even more urgently than me, which is saying something. He looks like he came here straight after class. High school class. And I’ve been staring. Fuck.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else,” I say, and realize to my horror that _his_ record is actually playing — Joe must have put it on again. I get up and walk around the counter to our audio system to turn it off. Awkward silence ensues. I turn towards him and offer some kind of smile that I hope looks apologetic enough.

The guy — Patrick — smiles back. His smile is almost as good as his voice, which is just unfair, really. “Thanks,” he says. “It’s really weird listening to myself.”

“You were great, though,” I feel compelled to mention. “Last night.”

“Oh, were you there, too? Thanks. I mean, sorry for the covers.”

“You should be. You made everyone cry,” I say, for some fucking reason. Oh god, what am I doing? “But like, in a good way.”

He blushes and laughs softly, mistaking that for a joke, and I let him believe it. “I’ll just—” he says, gesturing to the aisles behind him. 

“Sure, I’ll be here if you need me,” I say, and immediately want to take that back — ‘if you need _anything_ ’ is what I should have said. What is it about this guy that turns me into more of a disaster than usual? Must be the psychological fallout from crying to Green Day last night. Definitely — my brain must have forged some sort of, like, neural pathway between his face and me becoming an emotional mess. 

He starts browsing — in the R&B section — while I fall into a minor anxiety spiral over what I should put on next; I suddenly really, really want to impress him. I know what kind of music he writes, and I know he likes — allegedly, enough to do covers in a live set at least — Green Day and Joy Division. And then there’s last night’s t-shirt (glam-era Bowie) and today’s t-shirt (“Purple Rain”). _Fuck it_ , I tell myself, and just put on “Reconstruction Site” because it’s always calmed me down. Patrick makes his way through New Wave and Soul and Post-Punk and Shoegaze, running the tips of his fingers along the rows of records, and starts humming along with _The Reasons_. “ _And we know who we should love, but we’re never certain how._ ”

“I love the Weakerthans,” he says, smiling briefly at me, before his eyes fall on the bulletin board hanging behind the counter next to the Warp Records poster, overcrowded with club flyers and the handful of handwritten ads by some of our regulars looking for bassists, guitarists or drummers — mostly drummers, people are always looking for a drummer, I should have taken up drums rather than bass, maybe I would still have a band — and of course Joe’s slightly unhinged ad:

WANTED — BAND!!! (RHYTHM GUITAR, BASS, DRUMS, VOCALS)  
MUST BE INTO: HENDRIX, NEUROSIS, BLACK FLAG,  
OTIS RUSH, THE STOOGES. CONTACT JOE IN THE STORE.

(It’s been there… a while. The paper is starting to yellow, the ink to fade, but no takers yet.)

Patrick clears his throat, still peering at the mess of paper and pushpins, and says, “No one’s looking for a roommate, I guess.”

“Me, actually,” I blurt out. “I am.” Because I had a sudden vision, and it was _perfect_. I can’t imagine anything better than having this guy take over Mikey’s room, empty except for some dusty records I need to reorganize, and having him play guitar and write songs on my couch, jotting down chord progressions on a notebook. I’ve always wanted to live with a musician. It’s going to be _awesome_.

“For real?” he asks, and comes closer to ask where and when and how much, and we start talking, and just like that, I’ve gotten myself a new roommate. 

  


~

  


Patrick moves in over the next weekend. His dad helps him ferry his every worldly possession from their house somewhere in the suburbs: a couple of bags with clothes and, I’m guessing, hats, but mostly music gear. Four guitars, the trumpet and violin I saw him play at his show, and a couple of other mysterious black cases. And records, of course — four crates, which seems like a pretty decent collection until I hear him tell his dad as he’s leaving, “I’ll come back next week for the rest.” 

We order pizza and I get a couple of beers from the fridge while we wait. I ask him to put on some music, and he goes to his room and comes back with a small stack of records to get us through the evening — Tom Waits, Costello, the MC5, and Bowie’s _Low_. I seem to have acquired a roommate with perfect taste. We flop down on the couch and talk. Until tonight, we’ve mostly talked about the apartment, about moving-in dates and bills and leases and furniture, and it’s been surprisingly easy. I know I’m not the best at conveying information, or telling a story in a linear way, and I’m used to people saying _What?_ more often than it’s probably desirable in any conversation, but Patrick seems to just, like, get me. 

He tells me about his dad who wanted to be a musician but became a bank accountant and how he never misses one of Patrick’s shows, not even the ones in smelly basements where his son drummed for hardcore bands. 

“You played drums? Wait, hardcore? I used to be in a hardcore band!”

“I know,” he says, looking away and blushing a bit. “I saw a few of your shows.”

“Shit, really? Maybe I saw you play, too,” I say.

“Nah, I started a couple of years after you guys broke up, I think.”

“That’s too bad, dude, I’m sure you were great. So, uhm… how long ago was that prom you didn’t get to go to?” I ask, trying to do the math in my head.

“Four years ago,” he says, and laughs at me. “Don’t worry, you didn’t just give alcohol to a minor.”

I bury my face in my hands and laugh at myself, too. “I’m sorry, I’m being ridiculous.”

“You’re not. And I loved Arma — you were amazing. What happened there?”

I gratefully accept the change of topic and tell him the story, or at least a version of it that doesn’t make me want to puke at the mention of Chris’ name. Patrick’s a good listener, and then he shares his own band stories, including a few that were excellent reasons to go solo, even though he hates being on stage on his own, he tells me. 

Then the pizza comes, and we wash it down with more beer and more conversation, and we wrap up our first night as roommates by watching _Spirited Away._ It’s pretty perfect, I have to say, at least until I hear my cell phone vibrate and see there’s a missed call from Mikey. And, look, I know that way lies nothing but headaches and heartbreak, or rather, _more_ heartbreak. But the thing is, I’ve never been that big on self-preservation, so — yeah. I call him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/).
> 
> All the thanks to [andwhatyousaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andwhatyousaid/) for beta-reading and making my writing better as always <3


	3. I Want You to Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Theme song](https://open.spotify.com/track/4NWJgVVv0UmaHANXfdV9hh?si=SuDjgDpyQluMLLRIqkZ42w) for this chapter.
> 
> (New! Improved!) [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ACgUqiyYhAVJUxO5xdyND?si=7_cWxJ7KQ6qzeHvZxWb2Jg). 
> 
> The biggest thanks to [Fluffy_Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffy_Stuff/pseuds/Fluffy_Stuff) for a truly A+ beta read. (Any remaining fuckups are totally on me.)

> **regretwillalwaysgetyouintheend.blogspot.com/  
>  2/17/2006 - 5:49 CST**
> 
> though i’ve been trying really hard not to let my head go there: 
> 
> 1\. summer-- how there’s simply nothing worse than knowing the ending. how it was always going to be like summer camp, at a certain point it’s over and you have to go home. how i was the only one who didn’t know. 
> 
> 2\. iced coffee-- the way I can’t forget the exact way you take it, how i count the fucking rings of condensation permanently burned into the wood of my table sometimes, little reminders of each day you were here. how each time i think to myself there aren’t enough.
> 
> 3\. black nail polish-- just. how you held my hand sometimes. the way that made me feel, like maybeoneday. waiting for something that isn’t ever going to happen. 
> 
> 4\. age of consent by new order-- not going to explain this one, you know why, i know why.
> 
> 5\. marlboro lights-- the way you hold a cigarette cause you don’t know what to do with your hands when we are sitting this close. how i got a pack even though i'm trying to stop, just to feel like you. i miss you.

  


~

  


“I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately,” Mikey says, and looks at me with those eyes of his, and stops talking. 

I hum encouragingly. He looks into the depths of his beer while probably, I don’t know, deliberating what to say next. I take advantage of his distraction to look my fill. I know I’m being creepy, it’s just — I’ve just missed his face a lot. He’s changed — no glasses, hair longer and bleached — but it doesn’t really matter because the shape of his mouth, the shadows under his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw are the same, and my eyes trace them like muscle memory, automatic, like finding the chords for a song you’ve played a thousand times. Do you ever get that weird feeling? I mean looking at someone’s face and feeling like you already know it, instant familiarity. And maybe it’s _instant_ like coffee, not the real thing, but you notice too late, when it’s already in your mouth and it tastes horrible but you have to swallow it down. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m saying. Maybe that sometimes you find something that seems so immediately good that it just feels right, but it’s just that — a feeling — and it doesn’t mean anything, but you can’t know that at first. You just know it feels _good_ , powerful, a rush of blood to the head, and it’s hard to stop and think, especially if you’re a stupid asshole with a romantic disposition. So you get that feeling and think it must mean something because otherwise… what’s the point, right? 

Anyway. I’m here against the advice of every single sane person in my life. Not that I’ve actually asked — I already knew what they were going to say, just like I knew I was going to go ahead and do it anyway, so there was no point, really. I just couldn’t bring myself to say no when Mikey asked to see me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sitting here wondering what the fuck I’m doing in a booth opposite him under the nicotine-stained ceiling of a dive bar we used to patronize when we were… whatever the fuck we were, and waiting for him to use his words, which was never exactly his strong point. 

He runs the tip of his finger on the rim of the glass, round and round, and I watch the tiny drops of condensation run down the sides. “So, my therapist suggested—” he finally says, and fucking stops again. 

This guy might be the person I was most patient with in my life. I waited for him and waited for him. With bated breath, until I turned blue. I’m afraid my patience for him might be all used up by now. My “What?” is a little sharp.

Mikey flinches like a vampire suddenly faced with the morning sun but then finally, finally starts to talk. “Sorry, uhm. She suggested I tie up loose ends, kind of? Before the wedding? And then I got your text and I thought maybe we hadn’t left things on the best of terms and so—”

I can’t fucking believe him. Months and months and _months_ of silence and a wedding invitation popping up in my mailbox without any prior warning and it was a fucking missent text about fucking coffee that made him pick up the fucking phone? “Okay, okay, hold up,” I interrupt him, crossing my arms and watching him through a frown “Would you even have called me if it wasn’t for that text?”

Mikey raises his hand from the glass and holds it out, palm up. “I mean, maybe not just yet. I was going to, but I meant to kind of build up to calling you.”

This conversation just keeps getting worse. “Build up? Why, you have a list of people to call?”

Silence. God, I’ve missed lots of things about Mikey but these fucking cryptic silences are not one of them. 

I take a sip of beer and lean my elbows on the wooden table, watching him. He’s always had this talent for looking unflappable but I learned to search his expression for clues and now, looking closer, I can see the way his lips are pursed together, just slightly, but definitely keeping something in. “Wait, you _do_ ,” I say. “You actually have a fucking list.”

“Right, like you don’t have a list for fucking _everything_ ,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes — another one of his expressions so familiar that it makes me ache all over — and when he throws his head back to gulp down his beer I’m suddenly hit with a stupid rom-com montage of memories and we’re back in my kitchen, listening to The National and pre-gaming on cheap whiskey before getting to a show that I won’t pay due attention to because I’ll be too busy sneaking glances and hoping it’s one of the nights that end with us fooling around on the couch or bed or hallway floor. I’m heartbroken and turned on and homesick all at once, and on top of all that, being mad at him feels more like a burden than something righteous. 

(Also, he’s right, of course, I was making a list just last week, and his name was on it.)

As he sets down his glass, our eyes meet and I feel my lips curl into a smile. He smiles back like he thinks he might be off the hook, his eyes crinkling unfairly at the corners.

I grasp at some long-forgotten memory of playing it cool, try to turn this into a joke. “Mikeyway’s top-five pre-wedding loose ends. And I made the list? Why?”

“You know why.” He looks at me through his lashes, one of those looks that used to make my neck warm and my knees weak and, what do you know, they still do, and my heart makes a run for my throat. 

“Thanks for the invitation, by the way,” I say, trying to remind everyone sitting at this table that someone’s going to get married. “Also, I’m not a— a fucking loose end, Mikey, fuck off.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he says, then, and he sounds rough, and sincere, and I can feel the flimsy stitches holding my willpower together pulling, pulling. “Not you, but— I guess apologizing to you is the loose end. It wasn’t a good time for me. But you were like, the one good thing, for a long while.”

“You had a weird way of showing it,” I mutter under my breath, and my voice comes out weird. Mikey doesn’t get it, or doesn’t hear, and I’m not sure if the butterflies in my stomach are fluttering in relief or disappointment. I take a long pull from my beer, draining it, and say, “I’m getting another, d’you—?”

“I’m good,” he replies. I go up to the bar and wait in line and use that time to get a grip on myself, or at least fake it. My eyes itch, and what is it with me and crying lately? Maybe it’s good, it means I’ve stopped repressing all my shit, but still, I’m not crying in front of Mikey fucking Way anytime soon. It’s like Patrick playing that damned song last week has opened the floodgates. I breathe in the bar smell — spilled beer and cigarettes and something musty — and calm down, thinking of how I left Patrick at the apartment before coming here, sitting on the floor in front of the couch surrounded by two guitars, a couple of notepads and his laptop, composing. He stays there for hours and when I wander by he asks me what I think of this chord and that bassline and would it be better if it went _na NA na_ here, or _na na NA_. When I answer, he smiles, scribbles something down. My footsteps are lighter when I walk away. I haven’t drunk myself into a stupor or had a panic attack on the bathroom floor this week, not even once. 

“So listen,” I tell Mikey after I get my beer and get back to the table, cradling my palms around the chilled glass. “Would it kill us to make some small talk, do you think?”

Mikey smiles, crossing his arms and stretching out his legs under the table — I very carefully slide closer to the wall because touching, even of the plausibly accidental kind, feels like a very bad idea right now — and indulges me. 

We talk about records we’ve been listening to and his brother’s new comic series and no mention is made of the past or future, except for some shows we both mean to see a few months from now. 

It all goes sideways when I mention wanting a stronger drink, though I know I shouldn’t, and Mikey goes to the bar and gets two rum and cokes. We drink them fast and get another two and still talk about nothing of consequence. There’s a bit of not-completely-comfortable silence, and then he says, “Dude, this small talk is fucking torture.”

It doesn’t feel like a joke but I laugh anyway, looking down into my glass. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Can I just say— I’m glad you sent me that text. Even if it was actually for Joe. I miss our friendship.”

“Our friendship,” I repeat, and since I can never leave well enough alone I add, “Is that what we are? Ex-friends?”

He doesn’t reply, and when I raise my eyes, he looks almost startled. Which I get — I never asked him these kinds of questions when we hung out. I mostly just made sure to be conveniently close so he could reach for me when he felt like it. Now, our knees touch again under the table and I don’t move away this time, and I don’t look away, and in the end he only has to say, “I don’t know what we are, but I miss you.”

And, look, I know — this is pretty fucking disappointing on my part. My friends would want me to be better than this. I would also like me to be better than this. But I felt like I was begging for crumbs with him for so long, and now he’s looking at me like that, and it’s just too hard to care about anything else.

  


~

  


“I’m sorry I was such a dick last year,” he says, later, as we lie in my bed, our sides barely touching, the bedsheets twisted and tying us together for the time being. “I was really into you, but I couldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” I interrupt. I’ve wanted nothing more than to hear his side of the story for so long, to understand where it all went wrong. But the thing is, I know what he’s going to say — he was into me but I was _too_ into him, or too intense, or too much like him, and if we got together for real it would’ve been a mess, we wouldn’t have been good for each other. It’s all true, whatever he was going to say. In fact, we just proved it right, and now we’re really done. 

I still want to say something biting, something that’s meant to hurt, like, _I guess you can cross me off your list now_. But I just say, “It’s late, you can sleep here if you want.”

He falls asleep fast, and I don’t. He’s clearly exhausted, there are black rings around his eyes. Pretty soon he’s going to have one around his finger, too. I’m really worried for him and I want him to go to hell. I feel like shit and I feel fine. I watch him sleep because, as we’ve already established, I’m a creep, and I know this is the last time we’re going to be this close. I watch his rib cage rising and falling, his sharp angles and hidden softness, and try to commit this to memory like my mind is a roll of light-sensitive film.

  


  


I wake up to an empty bed, an imprint on my pillow and a crinkled receipt on the bedside table with something scrawled on the back. _thank you for last night. friends? xx_

I sit up and stare at those six words plus punctuation hoping some nonexistent hidden meaning will appear between the lines like invisible ink. The note goes to the back of my bedside drawer in the hope it can be an out of sight, out of mind kind of situation. Then I pull a pair of sweatpants on and do the walk of shame in my own apartment. I bump into Patrick, fully dressed and clearly getting ready to leave the house, in the hallway. I’m a bit hungover, a bit dizzy, and almost lose my balance, but he catches me and holds me upright cupping his hands around my shoulders. 

“Sorry,” I rasp out, and “Thank you,” and he answers with a soft smile, and then we stand there smiling at each other like a couple of maniacs. Our faces are pretty close. He has such a nice face. Seriously, his nose is perfect. I don’t usually go around noticing people’s noses, but his is surely one of the nicest ever. And now he’s blushing, which makes his face even nicer, and it makes my stomach turn. Or maybe it’s the hangover.

Eventually, we disentangle, and he says, “Uhm, I’m going out to the studio for a bit.” He stays close, like he’s worried I might still fall over, and he might not be entirely wrong. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, just— _coffee_ ,” I say, and do a stupid face. I’m aiming for a zombie saying _brains_ in a bad horror, but probably end up doing something closer to a baby wolf that can’t growl properly yet. Patrick laughs anyway, and the laugh plus the blushing is really — something. 

“There’s still some in the pot, roomie,” he says, stepping back and turning to get a gray scarf from the coat rack. “See you tonight?”

I nod and wave and watch him go, and it’s only while I’m finally chugging coffee that I realize the scarf was one of mine. 

  


~

  


The store is quiet. It usually is on Saturday mornings — things kind of pick up a bit through the afternoon, when most of our regulars come in as well as the occasional randoms. Travie’s coming in to help but I know not to expect him before noon. I don’t mind the quiet and alone time, normally, except today I keep getting flashbacks from last night. 

I need to revise my earlier morning-after report: Mikey left the shape of his head on my pillow, a goodbye note on a bar receipt, and a hickey on my neck. I spy it in the small mirror in the staff bathroom and immediately feel my face heat up with the memory of his teeth on my throat and his hand in my boxers, touching me right on the edge of too rough, my jeans pushed around my thighs. 

I don’t jerk off in the bathroom because I’m a fucking professional, thank you very much, but it’s a close thing. 

When Travie comes in, he finds me sitting on the counter, drumming my heels to Tapes’n’Tapes and staring into space. “Alright, bro? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“In a manner of speaking,” I say. There’s a handful of customers scattered through the store, so I gesture him closer. I might feel better if I talk about it, right? “I went out with Mikey last night.”

“What the _fuck_ , Pete?” he says, his eyebrows climbing up until they disappear into his curls. This reaction makes it clear that telling him I also went _home_ with Mikey last night wouldn’t be the best idea. 

“It was just, I don’t know. Catching up.” I know I’m faking, trying to make this thing more palatable, less nasty. It didn’t feel nasty at the time, but telling someone else — someone who’s decent, someone who loves me for some fucking reason — is a different thing. “He apologized, kind of. It was okay.”

“Did he call you?”

“Yeah.” 

I am officially the worst. But it’s true! He did. I’m not lying, just omitting my Freudian slip of sending him that stupit text meant for Joe. Luckily, a customer swoops in to save me by asking if we have the latest Justin Timberlake album for his niece. We don’t, but Travie can never resist trying to educate these white middle-aged dudes who think they know what the teen girls in their life listen to. The guy doesn’t get a word in until he’s finally allowed to leave the store, fifty dollars lighter and with The Killers, The Pipettes, and Lily Allen in our logo bag.

After that, things finally pick up, and I’m glad to put some cash in the register. Also, me and Travie being busy doing our jobs means there’s no time for gossip anymore, thank fuck — turns out, talking about it wasn’t making me feel better, and I was starting to really regret ever broaching the subject. 

Even though this is his Saturday off, Joe waltzes in around five PM, and Travie greets him by saying, “Hey man, guess who this idiot went out with last night.” Shit, I hoped he’d forgotten by now. 

“Oh no,” Joe says, aghast; but then he must be feeling merciful, or uneasy talking about boy trouble, and he changes the subject, telling us about this awesome playlist he made last night and putting it on and talking us through all his song choices, bless his weird passion for Canadian electropop.

Because I like flirting with danger, I’m the one who brings it up again. We’re closing up the store, and Joe and Travie are trying to get me to join them for a pre-dinner drink, but I’m not going. To be perfectly honest, which I’m not going to be except inside my own head, I just want to go home and get Chinese takeout and listen to Patrick tell me about his day at the studio.

“Sorry, guys, I’m beat. Anyway, I’m not drinking anything stronger than fizzy water tonight.” But they can be relentless with this stuff, and I figure I need a sharp conversational turn to get them off my back, so I open my mouth and out comes something that’s apparently been in the back of my mind: “Mikey did say one interesting thing last night.” 

Joe looks dubious. Travie sneers and says, “What, does he want you as his best man?” 

“Ha ha, very funny. No, but seriously — he’s going through a list of people, you know, friends, exes… to get some closure, I guess. I was thinking I might do something like that.”

“That’s one of the worst ideas you’ve ever had,” Travie says, appalled, right as Joe’s looking thoughtful and saying, “You know what, that’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

A mixed reception, then. Which is the usual reaction to my plans, so I don’t take it too much to heart. 

  


~

  


Patrick isn’t home. And I’m not sure how I managed to survive on my own until last week, because as soon as I find myself in an empty apartment, my ability to hold it together deserts me. I take off my shoes, shrug off my parka, and curl up above the covers in bed. It’s dark — the days still so short in February, the longest shortest month of the year, and so bitterly cold — and Mikey’s memory lingers on the pillows. Smoke and alcohol and his shampoo and the scent of his skin, the one that lives inside the collar of his leather jacket and which, regrettably, is the exact same as last year. I know I need to change the sheets, but part of me wants to sleep in them until they wear thin, like the pathetic loser I am. Some fucking closure.

I don’t sleep as much as spiral dizzily between past mistakes and future anxieties, until I hear someone whispering my name. I sit up too fast, startled, like I’m late for school and it’s my mom calling me, me out of time and she out of patience. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Patrick says, standing just outside my door. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, no,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes and looking, I’m sure, as sexy as a toddler with a cold. “’m awake. What time is it?”

“Almost nine, I stayed late at the studio. Did you eat?” 

I shake my head, still trying to plunge fully back into reality. The darkness isn’t helping, so I click on the lamp on the bedside table and swing my legs on the floor. “No, I basically came home from work and passed out.”

In the warm light, I see Patrick take half a step forward and lean into the doorframe, watching me and the room like he’s trying to figure something out. “I got some food on the way home,” he says, still speaking softly. “If you’re hungry.”

Patrick has this way about him, I noticed — a gentleness. I’m sure there’s all sorts of stuff hiding underneath the surface, a steel core, probably a bit of a temper, but if I had to explain it, I’d say he seems to be aware that anyone could be going through any kind of shit at any given time. Most people don’t know, and even the ones who do tend to forget more often than not. 

“I mean. I could eat,” I say, just as softly, trying not to shatter the atmosphere. Of course, my stomach chooses this moment to rumble very loudly and I hide my face in my hands.

“Clearly,” Patrick says, with a sweet, crooked smile. “Come on, meet me in the kitchen when you’re actually awake.”

  


  


“So do you do that a lot? Work late?” I ask him ten minutes later, as I try picking up fried rice with my chopsticks. As it turns out, Patrick is also a mind reader — he got the Chinese takeout that I’ve been craving all day. 

“Oh, yeah. I tend to focus a bit too hard on things, and then—” he makes a gesture like something flying away. “I lose my grasp of time.” 

“Mmh. Perfectionist?” 

“I mean, yeah. That’s one of the less insulting things I’ve been called.” And before I can jump up in indignation and ask him to name names and allow me to defend his honor, he goes on: “One of the reasons why having a roommate is a good idea.”

“Oh, I see. So if you stay in your room longer than twenty-four hours should I try luring you out with spicy food?”

He throws his head back and laughs, then, a real belly laugh, and I can’t really help feeling really, stupidly proud that I made him do that. Just as I can’t avoid noticing how fucking pretty he is — all the time, really, but like this, relaxed and happy and his eyes shimmering, he’s. Yeah. Anyway. “I get it, though,” I say. “I don’t do too well on my own, either.”

“Glad I’m here, then,” he says, and we have another moment like the one in the morning, where we smile at each other, and we don’t say anything for a bit, and it doesn’t even feel awkward. 

Unfortunately, after that, he asks, “So, what happened to whoever had my room before me?”

“Mikey? Well, funny story, actually— I had him over last night.” 

“Oh. Your ex?” 

“Not really,” I sigh. “It’s complicated. Or a fucking mess, more like.” 

And then I go and tell him the whole sorry story. 

I don’t know why. I haven’t told anyone, ever — never shared all the pieces, not even with Travie. But talking to Patrick feels so safe, for some reason, and as I spin the tale it even starts making slightly more sense. By the end, Patrick can grasp the significance of last night’s hook-up; he knows that this guy I’ve been telling him about is the same “Michael” from the wedding invitation pinned on our fridge door by a Dischord magnet; and I feel drained, and sad, but actually, finally, like that closure thing might not be that far out of my reach.

When I’m done, Patrick looks at me, and there’s a beat of silence, and I think he’s going to offer advice, or judgement, or tell me about a sentimental disaster of his own because misery loves company. But what he actually says is, “Let me play you something.”

So we relocate to the couch; I curl up with a blanket on one end and he perches on the other with his acoustic and starts playing _Five Years_. It’s my number one favorite Bowie song, and I want to tell him, except he’s singing like an angel, and I don’t want to interrupt; everything is warm, soft, safe, and I fall asleep there and then, like it’s nothing, like a little kid watching the clouds from the back of a car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/).


	4. Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ACgUqiyYhAVJUxO5xdyND?si=hXLFM1HnS6CWaGjSaEjkyQ) (I think it's getting good).

> **regretwillalwaysgetyouintheend.blogspot.com/ 2/28/2006 - 1:50 CST**
> 
> the sad thing is i was still waiting for you to come back to me, and then you did, but i think it was more like a relapse. then why do i feel like i’m the only one who needs to detox. what’s the half-life of heartbreak? when are you going to stop flowing through my bloodstream? and what’s the chemical reaction behind a bad night. maybe it's reading old texts i shouldn't have transcribed to remind myself it was real plus pills plus not sleeping.
> 
> its okay. been having bad nights for 26 years, i can cope with one more.
> 
> "this is no declaration, i just thought i'd let you know goodbye"

  


~

  


Patrick emerges from his room very late on Sunday morning, and finds me sitting cross-legged on the floor in the epicenter of a vinyl explosion — reorganizing my records is one of my healthier coping mechanisms during times of emotional upheaval.

He comes closer and peers down at the small piles, the germs of a new sorting system. “You’re not doing alphabetical order,” he says.

“Nope,” I say, turning my _Unknown Pleasures_ vinyl over in my hands (the shirt you were wearing the night we met). 

“Not chronological, either...” Patrick goes on, a small wrinkle of puzzlement forming on his forehead, watching me set the record down on the rug, next to _Power Corruption and Lies_ (the album that was playing while, well, you know. The reason why I can’t ever listen to _Age of Consent_ without being overwhelmed by a weird mix of lust and misery). “Are you putting related bands together, or—”

“Autobiographical order,” I say, and hope that explains it well enough that he won't press for details.

“Oh,” Patrick says. The wrinkle doesn’t smooth out completely, but he doesn’t push. “Can’t help you with that, I guess. Uhm, I’m supposed to go see my dad anyway.”

“Getting the rest of your records?”

“Among other things, yes,” he sighs, and his lips curl up slightly in a not-very-successful attempt at a smile. He looks tired and very young and I suddenly want to tell him screw my records and his dad and let’s just take the day and… do what, exactly? I don’t know. Play hooky, go to the movies for too much popcorn and something trashy and mindless. And it must be because he looks like an actual high schooler like this, bedhead and soft sweatpants and glasses slightly crooked, but I’m suddenly sunk in the red padded seats of the very last row of the theater, having what I think of as my first kiss, only it’s Patrick there instead of Laura and I’m reaching out to touch his cheekbone as his eyes flutter shut and— what the fuck. My head is such a weird place to be, sometimes. I shake it off and attempt a smile, which probably comes off as wobbly as Patrick’s. 

He goes back to his room, and I keep shuffling records around until he comes back after ten minutes or so, half bundled up against the cold. “Will you be okay?” he asks, tentative, turning back to look at me as he’s unlocking the door. 

“Sure,” I shrug. “This is, like, healing. Cheaper than therapy, too.”

He doesn’t look super convinced, but he lets it go. “Okay, roomie, see you tonight,” he says, and then at the last second, right before shuffling out the door, he stretches on his tiptoes to the coat rack — why is it so fucking high up on the wall, by the way, since no one tall lives here anymore, I should move it, or let’s be real, bribe Travie or Marie to do it for us since me plus power tools equals disaster — and steals my scarf. Again.

I wave bye-bye, like a small child or an awkward idiot, and watch him go from my pile of records and despair. The lady on the cover of _Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness_ rolls her eyes at me as the door clicks shut. I can’t fucking do this. I’ve been up for three hours and I’m already exhausted. 

I decide it’s time for a cigarette break, and I smoke one leaning outside the window, elbows on the windowsill, then I light another one from the first and think about all the times you and I did this, letting the smoke out and the muggy summer air in, standing too close, and how all too often your hand would end up under my t-shirt, making me shiver. Which is what I’m doing now, except this year it’s the cold and memories and last year it was temptation and you. 

I put out the second cigarette and go into the kitchen to look for something to eat, but then I see your curlicued name on the fridge door and head to the bathroom instead. I examine the bags under my eyes in the mirror — they’re ugly and purple from up close, like bruises or smudges of dirt. I get one of the little orange bottles from the top shelf of the cabinet and pour out one pill — fuck it, another one, and swallow both down drinking from the tap, the water trickling down my sleeve. And then it’s back to bed, hopefully to sleep, realistically to look on as my mind does its worst. Most of my records still lie around in piles on the living room floor. I shouldn’t leave them like that, but I do it anyway. I don’t care. 

All I know is, Friday you were in this bed, giving me a dose of something I’d fought so hard not to crave anymore, and then you scribbled something neutral on a scrap of paper and left me to sleep it off alone like a one night stand, and yesterday you didn’t call, and all day today my phone’s been silent, and I’m trying to trick myself into believing I can still smell you on my pillow but I can’t, and I probably won’t ever again, and _fuck_ , I was _getting over you_ , and it took _a long fucking time_ , why did you have to call, why did you have to touch my knee under the table and look at me like that, why did you have to give me a ride home, why did you have to come upstairs, why did you have to kiss me outside the door, why did you have to do all that while you’re still getting married. And why did I fucking let you. 

Because now I have to redo the whole process of getting over you; I’m going to cycle back through all the fucking stages of grief and start again. I sink down into the covers of my bed and hope that the numbness takes over, or at least something that doesn’t make me hurt all over. I went through this before and I made my way out. Kind of. Maybe it’ll be easier this time. And then I laugh at myself, because yeah fucking right.

  


~

  


On Monday I get up before 7 a.m., leave the apartment early. I’ll admit — I don’t want to run into Patrick in the kitchen. It’s weird, but I feel like he can read me a little too well already, and right now I need to pretend like I’m not feeling anything, just for a little bit, until it becomes true. But I just had to fucking spill to him about Mikey, I had to _be too much_ as per fucking usual, and now he looks at me like he _knows_. At least he doesn’t seem to judge, but still, I really wish I could behave more like a normal person sometimes. 

Anyway, I open up the store, and walk around in a sulky mood all day. Joe and Travie exchange glances and eyerolls and I can’t find it in myself to apologize, or explain, and I definitely can’t find the strength to snap out of it. I say _hello_ when someone comes in and _bye_ when someone leaves, and work the register, and send out a couple of orders, and besides that, I keep my mouth shut. The thoughts inside my head aren’t worth mentioning. 

When I get home, Patrick’s not there — still at the studio, I suppose. I don’t feel relief about it; I don’t feel disappointment. Somewhere during the day, I finally stopped feeling much at all. Is it better than before? Is it worse? I don’t know, everything feels remote, like it doesn’t concern me directly. The only thing that cuts close to the bone is that you still haven’t called — not to apologize, not to ask if you can see me again, not even with some excuse about forgetting something at my place, or something. 

Tuesday is more of the same shit. Bad mood, silent phone. Wednesday isn’t any better, and there’s no real improvement on Thursday, either. I tell myself that at least I have enough pride left in me not to be the one to call. 

It’s late in the afternoon, after I’ve sent Travie home to spare him my gloom and doom, when someone I’ve never seen before comes into the store. I can say this with confidence because there is no way I would ever forget this guy. He’s on the short side, a ginger with a short beard, broad shoulders and clearly packing some serious muscle under his flannel and black Carhartt jacket. Colorful tattoos are peeking out of his collar and cuffs. His hands are also inked — a black letter on each knuckle, though I can’t make out what they spell. We exchange an expressionless nod — I’m reminded of the stone-faced, immovable hardcore kids watching Arma play, years ago — and then he proceeds to go over the Death Metal, Hardcore, and Math Rock sections with a fine tooth comb. 

He picks four records, bands ranging from Swedish and obscure to local and up-and-coming, and while I ring him up his eyes wander over to the bulletin board. 

“Oh, are any of these bands any good?” he asks, and his voice is soft and high — so completely at odds with his appearance that I almost burst out laughing (but I don’t, because I’m not that much of an asshole and also I think if this guy punched me I would break cleanly in half, or shatter into very little shards like a crystal glass thrown out of a fourth-story window). 

To be perfectly honest, no, none of these bands are any good. They’re mostly college-age kids chasing commercial success through some bland brand of pop punk, with an unimaginative sound and often frankly misogynistic lyrics, or pretentious hipsters who sample like there’s no tomorrow but couldn’t actually play an instrument or write a song if their life depended on it. 

“Well, uhm, you know,” I reply, the very picture of diplomacy. “What do you play? What were you looking for?”

“I drum,” he says. “Just moved here from Milwaukee. Could use a band. Or two. Huh, this one looks cool,” he says and, incredibly, points to Joe’s ad. “I love Neurosis.”

My jaw literally drops. “Dude. That’s my friend Joe. Really?”

“Your friend’s got good taste in music,” he says, nodding and touching his beard in approval. 

“Yeah, Joe’s awesome like that. He’s not here today, but you should give him a call. Here.” I write down Joe’s number on the back of one of our cards. 

“I think I will. I’m Andy, by the way,” he says, smiling for the first time. His eyes crinkle at the corners and he looks ten years younger. Still more than a bit intimidating, though. 

“Pete.” I shake his hand, and slide the card in the bag with his records. 

  


~

  


Finally, on Friday afternoon, my mood starts to thaw. I tell Joe I found him a _drummer_ who’s a fan of Neurosis, Pelican, and Meshuggah, and he’s going to get a call from him, and Joe looks so fucking happy that it’s really hard not to feel like I’m a real boy with a real heart after all. Also, the world’s number one musical matchmaker. Joe hugs me. Travie comes over and hugs us both, wrapping his sensibly longer arms around us and resting his chin on the top of my head, and says, with an air of finality, “Bar, tonight. _All of us_.”

I shouldn’t be drinking when I’m like this, but I really don’t have it in me to say no. Since I’ve barely seen Patrick all week, and I’m starting to feel guilty for ignoring him, I text him, _going 4 a drink with the guys 2nite, join us?_ He sends back, _Yes!_ and a smiley face, and I text him the address, telling him to take his time. 

  


A couple of hours later, we’re sitting at our usual booth when I see him come in and start looking around. I get up to retrieve him when he doesn’t see me waving him over, probably because his glasses are all fogged up. 

“Hey, roomie,” I say, deciding to try out this word he keeps using. It makes him smile, which is a win — but I still like saying his name better. I like the shape of it on my lips. “Hey, Patrick.”

“Hey, roomie,” he echoes, and then goes from smile to frown as he frees his glasses from his headphones and untangles his headphones from his — my — scarf and unwinds the scarf from his denim jacket and unbuttons the jacket revealing a double layer of hoodies — dark blue, forest green — underneath. Eventually, an unwrapped Patrick stands before me, smiling again, cheeks flushed. He mirrors my pose, leaning slightly into my space. “Hey, Pete.” 

My mouth is suddenly dry, for some reason, so I suggest— “Beer?”

“Yes, please.”

We get a pitcher and go back to the table, where Joe and Travie greet him like old friends, with easy smiles and thwacks on the shoulder. Travie’s sprawled into one of the two benches, long limbs taking up even more room than usual, and Joe, who was sitting next to me earlier, found himself a chair somewhere and placed it at the head of the table. That leaves the other bench for me and Patrick to slide in. It’s not that tight of a squeeze, neither one of us requiring lots of space, but we sit quite close anyway. 

We talk — the guys ask Patrick about recording, and he answers their questions graciously enough. Every now and then, I feel him shivering a bit from the cold outside, see him rubbing his hands together. Maybe I’m not too bad at reading him, either, because I notice the way his voice changes as he talks, getting higher and colder with nerves, or anxiety — it’s the same way I remember him speaking the first time I saw him, alone on the stage of the Empty Bottle, and I couldn’t see it then, his discomfort at being under the spotlight, the way he clutched the neck of his guitar too tight, but now that I've seen him lounging on the couch, eating pizza like he doesn't have a care in the world, the difference is so obvious. Unfortunately, three-fourths of the people sitting at this table have tried and failed to become professional musicians, and Joe and Trav never got as close as I did to making it and thus are not as jaded as me. This means they could basically talk about this shit until the end of time, or at least until Patrick has a breakdown, whichever comes first. 

“Okay, top five guitar effect pedals, go—” Joe’s saying, and Patrick’s starting to get a bit of a haunted look in his eyes and I think yeah, that’s quite enough. 

“So listen, guys,” I interrupt. Joe starts to protest, but I raise my hand. “That was too nerdy even for you, dude. What I’m going to say, on the other hand, is epic, so _listen_.”

Next to me, Patrick breathes out and gulps down some of his beer. 

“Okay, so here’s my grand unified theory of love and fucking up,” I begin. And it’s not like I’m even totally sure where I’m going with this, but the amount of skepticism in Joe’s eyes is uncalled for, honestly. As is the melodramatic way in which Travie rolls his eyes. “I posit—”

Joe interrupts me immediately. “Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t start with the… the… _terms_. You went to college, we get it.” He turns to Patrick, gesturing towards me. “Did you know this one was almost a lawyer? _Can you imagine_?” 

Patrick turns toward me and considers my face with unnerving attention, as if the shape of my nose or the slant of my eyes might give him some actual insight into the alternate timeline in which I actually graduated and followed into my father’s footsteps, instead of turning into the blackest possible sheep of the family barring heroin addiction and petty crime. 

“Yeah, no,” he says eventually, with this glint in his eyes that makes me think of fireworks. “Record store owner suits you much better.” 

And the thing is, this was never my dream career — I’m okay with it, but it kind of happened to me. So it doesn’t really make sense how fucking _pleased_ I am to hear him say this. Feeling a bit unsettled, I drain my beer, and Travie gets up to get another round, and before I know it an unknown amount of time has passed, I’ve completely lost the thread of the conversation, and we’re all well on the way to drunk. Joe and Trav are engrossed in a discussion about... Rihanna? Whatever, it looks intense and I don’t want any part in it. Patrick’s watching them through his empty glass, his head resting on its side on his crossed arms on the table. 

“Tired?” I ask him, and he looks up at me without raising his head. “Call it a night?” 

He smiles and hums in assent and slowly unfurls from the booth. Goodbyes are said and back-thumping hugs are given and I have a feeling we’re going to open late tomorrow morning. 

  


We could have walked home, but it was so fucking cold and Patrick was looking so exhausted that I decided to get a taxi. We’re sitting in the backseat now, the driver has cranked up the heat and Patrick is leaning slightly into me. I’m already sobering up, and when the car turns abruptly I instinctively put an arm around Patrick to anchor him. He melts into my side — honestly, we’re basically cuddling at this point. I add “sleepy, affectionate drunk” to the list of endearing traits of his personality. 

Then he asks, his voice soft and very close to my ear, “What were you going to say?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Before, at the bar. You said you have this big theory of— something?”

“I did, and I do, but that was mostly to distract those two from pestering you with questions,” I admit. Patrick’s head slides a bit lower still, until it rests on my shoulder, and he mumbles a _thanks_ into my sweater.

“You’re welcome,” I chuckle. “But anyway, it’s like— everyone’s always leaving me. And I started to think about it, how I fall too easy, for the wrong sort of person, and get obsessed, and then I fuck up for good measure… but, I mean— yeah?” 

As I was talking, Patrick sat up, and now he’s looking at me, still very close, with huge, dark eyes. He still looks half-asleep, though, and I wonder how much of this he’s going to remember tomorrow. “Go on,” he says, and I do. 

“I mean, there must be something wrong with me — chemical imbalance, faulty personality, skewed attachment style — a mix of all that shit, whatever. So, like, it’s not my fault. Or it’s like, _half_ my fault. But anyway, Mikey said something last week, and it got me thinking. What if I could talk to the people who left, and ask them why, what I did wrong? And maybe then I could do better, I don’t know. Because I don’t want to be doomed.”

“Half-doomed,” Patrick says. The car takes another sharp turn, and he slides closer again, props a hand on my knee to stay upright, saying “Sorry,” but not letting go. 

“What?” I ask.

“You said it’s only half your fault, so you’re only half-doomed, at most,” he says. He’s still speaking softly, and looking soft and tired and drunk, but his chin is jutting out and his face is so _serious_ , as if this were really important. He must have been such a stubborn little kid. “But I don’t think that you are. And I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk yourself down. You’re not— faulty, or unbalanced, or— whatever you think you are. Why do you assume you were the one to do something wrong?” 

“Why do you assume I wasn’t? You don’t know the shit that went down. You don’t know me that well.”

“I know you enough,” he mumbles, and rests his head on my shoulder again. There's a long moment when I assume he’s finally fallen asleep, leaving me with my thoughts, but then he’s saying, “Y’know… some relationships aren’t meant to work out. Doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Maybe talking to your exes would help you see that.”

And before I can come up with an answer to that, well, he’s truly asleep, resting against me. A few minutes later, I pay for the cab and drag him upstairs. 

  


~

  


I do open late on Saturday morning, but it’s not even because of the hangover, which isn’t even that bad. The problem is I barely slept, thinking about my conversation with Patrick in the back of the taxi. He’s probably not even going to remember, but it stays with me — the things he said, and the way he looked as he said them, so earnest, so sure. This makes me _feel_ , is the thing, and the numbness feels as remote as an alternate universe, like Patrick’s pep talk was magical, like he somehow found the way to get through to me even when no one and nothing else could. 

Looks like I’m going ahead with my plan, then. 

First on the ex list is Laura, she of the fire-red hair, black Docs, and impeccable music taste. My first meaningful kiss. The first time I got dumped. My parents know her parents, I think, and I almost start calling my mom and asking if she still has Laura’s mom’s number, and then I remember we’re in the 21st century and I google her.

She has a website — not a MySpace or a blogspot, no, an actual website, her name and surname dot com. The homepage is black, with _Laura P. — music photography_ at the top, in a handwritten all-caps font, above a three-by-two grid of black and white polaroid pictures, with smaller black words on the frames — _live_ , _portrait_ , _backstage_ , _editorial_ , _personal projects, info_. The last one leads to a short biography: workshops she attended, festivals she covered, magazines she shoots for, and a self portrait. Her hair isn’t fire-red and straightened anymore; she keeps it natural now, a warm brown-black, falling in soft-looking curls around her ears, one of which is pierced with a row of tiny silver loops. She’s looking straight into the lens of the huge camera propped against her shoulder, standing in front of a mirror in a sleeveless Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and ripped jeans and looking basically like the coolest person on earth. 

There’s an email address, too, and before I can stop myself, I write a short note, reminding her about my existence, complimenting her work and mentioning something about catching up. She’s never going to reply, but it’s worth a try.

  


~

  


In the end, you don’t even cook up an excuse. In the end, after more than a week, when I should be past the denial stage and maybe, with any luck, getting started on the anger, you just swing by the store at closing time, and I’m not sure what I would say to you if Joe were still here, but I sent him home because he had a nice normal date with his nice normal girlfriend, so I’m here on my own, tidying up and listening to Belle and Sebastian while outside, fittingly, the sky’s pouring down, when the bell dings and there you are, stepping in and saying, “Hi, can we talk?”

And I picture it in my mind, all the better ways I could respond — me not moving a muscle, just looking up from where I’m sweeping the floor and saying, casual as anything, “Nah, I’m busy,” and you slinking back home, crushed by my off-hand rejection, never to be seen again.

Or coming towards you, shoulders set, eyes hard, and spitting out, “No, no we can’t _talk,_ you fucking asshole piece of shit,” maybe brandishing my broom menacingly, and you would turn tail and run away, and think about me in awe and fear for evermore.

Or, what else, I mean — anything else, _anything_ would be better than what I actually do, which is let you in, and get you a towel for your hair so you don’t drip on the merchandise, and tell you I should have a dry shirt in my office for you to change into, saying, “You know, if you want,” to give you the option of backing out. But you don’t take it, you just nod, so I lock up the store and let you follow me to the back.

“We’re still good at this,” you say, trailing after me. I kick out the chair that’s half-hidden under my desk and move the pile of paperwork to the floor, gesturing for you to sit down. 

“Good at what?” I ask, and start rummaging around in the boxes stacked underneath the small window. We don’t sell merch, but I have some leftovers from the brief time we tried to, and there must be something that’s not very good, something unfit for sale, weirdly-shaped or exceedingly large, something that won’t fit you too well. 

“Finding excuses,” you reply, rubbing at your hair with the towel until you look less like a rain-drenched kitten and more, unfortunately, like a very hot guy with sex hair. 

“What excuses? I don’t want you to get pneumonia so I’m finding you a stupid shirt, and you wanted to talk, so. Shirt—” and I throw you a neon orange tee from some local band that I don’t remember having ever seen before, “—now start talking.”

Before you can put it on, you have to stand up and take off your wet clothes — the leather jacket, the striped sweater, the Anthrax tee, everything wet and clinging a bit even though you’re so thin that I could count off your ribs with my fingers if I put my hands on your goosebumped skin. Which I won’t. Because you want to talk. Among other reasons.

I look away — outside the window, where it’s still raining, the sky heavy and light-pollution purple, and when I turn back you’ve covered up and sat back down. I can’t help thinking that you look good even in neon orange, and that you haven’t started talking. “What are you doing here, Mikey?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh. “I wanted to explain, I— don’t want you to think I’m an asshole. I mean, I am, but maybe less than you think. It’s like. Me and Alicia. We’re not—”

“You’re not getting married?” I ask, and bring my chair around the desk to sit down in front of you. I feel like this conversation is not one I should be standing up for. You look down at where your knees are a hair’s breadth away from touching mine, and don’t look up when you finally reply. 

“No, we are. But we’re— fuck, I hate this, it sounds sleazy and it’s not, I promise, it’s just— we’ve both had bad relationships in the past, with jealous and controlling people, and we don’t want that. So yeah, we’re getting married, we love each other, but we’re keeping things open. So I’m just saying, maybe I’m an asshole, but I’m not a cheating asshole.”

“Okay,” I breathe out. I’m frozen in place on my plastic chair. I’m not sure what all of this has to do with me, but I mean. Good to know, I guess. “Okay, but why—”

“I’m telling you,” you say, anticipating my question, “because I care what you think. I care about you, Pete. I’ve really missed you,” and you’re finally looking at me again. You pause, and your eyes flash to my lips for a moment and then you blurt out, a rapid-fire whisper, “And I want to be your friend but I can’t pretend I’m not thinking about kissing you right now.”

I don’t know if I want to kiss you too, or punch you, or run away screaming, but what I need more than anything is to hold onto something because I’m starting to feel my grasp on reality slipping a little bit. And your hand is close to mine already, curled around the edge of your chair, so I reach out and grab it. I close my eyes against the tide, because looking at you is impossible right now. 

You squeeze my hand hard and say roughly, “Fuck, that wasn't what I meant to say at all, I’m sorry. It’s just— I keep thinking about last week, with you. I shouldn’t have run out like that.”

And I fall, surrender, sink like a leaking ship — I pull you in and you fall to your knees in front of me and for a second your lips are like ice on mine, but they warm up as soon as we kiss, and kiss, and don’t stop. 

You’re right, though, we got really good at making excuses while we were hooking up, and I haven’t lost the knack for plausible deniability, clearly, because even as you curl your hand behind my neck, holding me still as you keep kissing me, even as your chest presses against mine and I wrap my arms around your shoulders to pull you even closer, I’m telling myself, _It’s okay, this is the last time_ , and I can almost believe it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again [Fluffy_Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffy_Stuff/pseuds/Fluffy_Stuff) for beta reading, you are a gem <3
> 
> [Tumblr](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/).


	5. Skinny Love

The Metro, again. The Dresden Dolls are putting on a hell of a show and I can’t seem to get into it. 

How many bands have I watched play on this stage, on other stages, in basement corners with ten other people, two hundred, one thousand, and every time there’s a spark — but it’s anybody’s guess whether it catches. It doesn’t, tonight — not for me, though the girl standing to my right keeps bumping into me as she dances like a deranged marionette, her face enraptured, her theater makeup running. She’s wearing a ripped up, mothball-scented wedding dress. Me, I’m somewhere else, floating a few feet above the ground and abstractly admiring Amanda Palmer’s striped stockings. 

Travie seems to be having a good time, as do most of the people here, in fact. Their love lives must be less complicated than mine. Travie keeps sneaking me glances in badly-veiled concern, and I wonder if I’ll ruin his night more if I stay, and keep distracting him, or if I just give up and go home. I was trying not to drink tonight, but, yeah. I tap Travie’s shoulder and he turns and looks down at me as I gesture to the bar, but he shakes his head. 

The crowd thins out as I get closer to the bar and I start breathing easier. A beer or two should help, and then I might just wait out the end of the show back here, so Travie won’t feel like I ditched him and I won’t have a panic attack in the middle of the Brechtian costume party up there.

There’s a guy standing in line at the counter with blond hair peeking out of a knitted hat and catching the light, and for a moment I think it’s Patrick, that he came home for the weekend and didn’t tell me for some reason, but it’s not him, of course — this guy’s taller than me, for one, like every single person in this place except some of the girls, and Patrick is still in NYC, mixing the album with the hotshot producer the label stuck him with, “this pompous jerk who used to play in some shitty glam metal band in the Nineties,” as per Patrick’s text. He’s not very happy about it. Neither am I. The apartment feels too big without him, even with the mess of clothes and records and notebooks he’s left behind like a territorial puppy. 

“Pete?” someone says, in a voice I don’t really recognize, though it tugs at my memory just enough that, as I turn around, I go through a list of almost-friends, friendly acquaintances, local musicians who hang out at the store.

But it’s Laura. Looking exactly like the self-portrait on her website, except her hair is gathered up in a bun and she’s wearing all black. She looks me up and down, considering, and finally smiles at me, cautiously, without showing her teeth, and just like that, I am fifteen years old all over again. “It _is_ you,” she says.

“Hi,” I manage, feeling very glad that it’s dark, because I’m pretty sure I’m blushing. “It’s been... a while.” 

“You could say that,” she says, still watching me like she’s playing ‘spot the difference’ and wearing that close-lipped smile and a slight frown. It must be weird for her. It’s definitely weird for me. “I got your email.”

We’re interrupted by a particularly explosive bit of piano playing followed by a burst of cheers and whoops and applause. We shift closer so we can hear each other, both of us moving forward half a step, like all the awkward high school dances we never attended together. Something hard bumps against my hip, and I look down, to the camera hanging from her shoulder that I hadn’t noticed before. “Is that your telephoto lens, or...” 

She laughs, her face finally softening. “That’s my camera, yeah, I’m working, but I’m also happy to see you. I was going to reply, but I just moved back here and then I was in Berlin and—”

“Berlin?” I’ve always wanted to see Berlin. I instantly picture a life where Laura didn’t dump me and we stayed together through high school and college and she now brings me along on all her cool work trips. (Top five European cities I dream of visiting someday and probably never will: Paris, Rome, London, Berlin, Amsterdam.)

Then I blink and it’s back to reality, and she’s saying, “Yeah, I was working on this project about autonomous zones and living in a squat, well, kind of— uh, hi.”

She looks over my shoulder, and up, and then I hear Travie behind me say, “Hey.”

I make the introductions, explaining that Travie and I own a record store together — Laura oohs and aahs accordingly — and then get stuck on trying to explain who Laura is to me. I steal a glance at her to gauge by her expression if she wants me to play it down, but she’s just beaming up at Travie. Anyway, _the first girl who broke my heart_ doesn’t feel appropriate for this kind of casual social occasion. I settle on: “We went to high school together.” 

“It’s okay, you can say it,” she tells me, then turns to Travie, cupping a hand around her mouth and stage-whispering at him, “We were going steady.”

“Yeah, for a few hours,” I grumble under my breath as Travie chuckles, but it actually feels good to turn my teenage heartbreak into a lighthearted joke. 

I’m about to ask Laura if she wants to get a drink with us, but she’s suddenly stifling a yawn and saying, “Sorry, I’m still jet-lagged and I need to go home and pass out, but if you still wanted to catch up…”

Travie gives me a pointed glance and elbows me sneakily in the ribs. “Sure!” I yelp. “Why don’t you drop by the store soon. I’ll text you the address.” 

“Yeah, that’d be great!” she says, and we exchange phone numbers, and then she’s off, waving at us with her big black camera. 

“Man, she’s the coolest,” Travie says, watching her walk away. “How did you get _her_ to give you the time of day?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I _am_ cool though.” 

“Nah,” Travie tells me, shaking his head sadly. “Not on that level.”

He’s probably right, though. Anyway. Alcohol. “Can you please stop slamming me and get me a beer?” I ask, not even trying not to whine. 

“You got it,” Travie says, and ruffles my hair, and doesn’t even call me on it when I lean into his hand a little bit. 

I feel weird, my head trying to boomerang me back to when I was a kid, one foot in the present and one foot in the past. I take a bathroom break while Travie gets in line for the bar. I take a piss and wash my hands and look in the mirror and figure Laura wasn’t probably looking at me so searchingly for any sentimental reason, but because of the whole situation with my hair — it’s a rat’s nest, too long at the front and sticking up at the top. But the night is almost over, and it’s not like I can do anything about it, so I just pull up my hoodie to hide the mess. As I zip it up, I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. It’s Mikey. _Hey, are you out?_

 _at the metro_ , I type back. _but going home soon i guess_

_Can I come over?_

And it’s not like I was really looking forward to sulking alone in an empty apartment.

~

I’ve been home ten minutes when Patrick calls. It’s almost midnight here, and he’s one hour ahead. He’s been calling most nights from his friend’s apartment he’s crashing in to tell me how much of a dick the producer has been that day, and what kind of pizza he’s tried, and a random assortment of other Patrick things. Talking on the phone comes almost as easy as talking to him on our couch in the dark while some Eighties movie we both know by heart plays on the TV.

Tonight, he’s complaining about Butch daring to suggest he should tone down the brass section and crank up the guitars on one track. After he’s done expressing his outrage, I figure I can safely change the subject and tell him, “Patrick, you’ll never guess who I bumped into tonight at the Metro.”

“Who?”

“Laura. My first girlfriend.”

“The one who didn’t reply to your email?”

“Yeah, she was staying with some anarchists in Berlin, apparently, I don’t know. But she’s dropping by the store soon and we’re going to catch up. And then I think she’s going to ride off into the sunset with Travie.”

“What?” Patrick laughs. “Why would she do that?” 

“You should have seen them, dude. It was like that scene in _Big Fish_ when Ewan McGregor sees the girl and time stops all around him... fucking love at first sight, I’m telling you.”

“Whoa, really? So have you ever—” Patrick says, and then a voice calls his name, a girl’s voice, and I hear him call out, muffled, _Give me a minute!_

“Sorry,” he says, “that’s Greta, she came in to record with her band and she’s staying here too. We’re going to watch _Lost in Translation_ , apparently.”

“Oh, you’ve never seen that? The soundtrack is pretty crazy. There’s all this shoegaze stuff, amazing, and then— oh, man, you’re going to lose your mind.”

“Am I?” Patrick laughs. “Why?”

“There’s this one song— you’ll see, I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you.”

There’s a crunchy noise, like Patrick’s fumbling with the phone, and then: “Okay, I need to go, she’s starting the movie.” 

“Yeah yeah, enjoy your date.”

“It’s not a _date_ ,” he splutters immediately, and I’m going to say something really annoying next, something that’s going to make him blush — of course it’s a pity to waste a Patrick blush on a phone call, but it’s still good practice, and getting him embarrassed and slightly flustered is fast becoming one of my favorite activities — when I hear knocking at the door, so I let it slide and just tell him _okay_ , _if you say so_ and _goodnight_ , and I let him go. 

Mikey’s shivering on the landing. “Hi,” he says, and looks behind me, slightly arching one eyebrow. 

“Still in New York,” I say. There is no love lost between those two. It’s my own fault, of course — I complained so much about my thing with Mikey that my resentment must have rubbed off on Patrick. So now it feels like we’re sneaking around behind my roommate as well as Alicia, even though we’re not actually sneaking around at all. 

“Hey,” I say, as Mikey takes off his parka and hangs it on the coat rack that’s too high up for me and just right for him. “I feel like I’m seeing more of you now than while you were living here.”

“Is that a complaint?” 

I shake my head. He rubs his hands together, but they’re still cold when he cups them around my face and pulls me in for a kiss. His lips are cold, too, but it’s still good. It’s always good.

“Can we—” he says between one kiss and the next, walking me back towards the living room. “On the couch, is that okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say as we practically fall through the door and on the couch and we make out like teenagers, and that’s good, too — because it’s always good, with you. Even though it feels like we’re sneaking around. Even though it feels bittersweet, or like every time’s going to be the last. It’s not the same as when we first started hooking up, now, it’s softer, and sweeter, and tonight it doesn’t even turn into anything else. We fool around, strictly above the waist, me on top and you stretched out underneath, and hold each other close, and kiss, slow and easy, until we’re just sharing each other’s air, and your breathing slows down so much that I realize you’ve fallen asleep. 

Well, great. 

And I can’t even bring myself to be mad, or wake you up — you’re always so tired, these days. I wonder if you get any sleep when you’re home. 

I don’t feel like sleeping. It’s too early for me, and besides, that couch doesn’t really accommodate two people napping — except, well, I suppose Patrick and I did both fall asleep on it last week while trying to marathon _Lord of the Rings_. 

I disentangle myself and get you a blanket from the bedroom, then retire to the kitchen and put the kettle on. I’m trying to wean myself off Xanax and probably developing a risky chamomile habit in the process. It’s still cold out, the kind of cold that you can’t really keep out, and though the dark green hoodie draped on the back of a kitchen chair isn’t mine, I shrug it on anyway. If Patrick didn’t want me to borrow his clothes, he shouldn’t have left them lying around. I put the chamomile bag in a mug and carefully pour the boiling water from the shitty electric kettle that tends to erratically spit scalding liquid everywhere. 

Before tonight, I’d have said my old flames plan wasn’t going great. The idea of seeing Heather again fills me with dread, Chris is still in Cleveland for all I know — or maybe dead in a ditch somewhere, one can always hope — and I’m afraid Ashlee might try to strangle me if we’re ever in the same room again. 

And you. Well. Can I even call you an old flame, when you’re napping on my couch as we speak? 

I can see you if I tip back my chair and stretch my neck. You seem to be out like a light. One skinny leg has escaped from the blanket at one end of the couch, and the bleached ends of your hair are sprouting up from the other like thistledown. You look like a giant, weird flower that’s nodded off in my living room. So beautiful, stretched out on the couch. Like the one thing that I wanted most desperately, a falling star wish come true. A fragile thing, wrecked by problems that I don’t even know about and can’t protect you from. It’s not my job, anyway; not my place to save you. I don’t even know what I should save you from, though I have my theories, of course. 

My phone buzzes with a new message. _When Doves Cry covered by Patti Smith?_

_yep. nice surprise?_

_Very. This film is weird though_

_haha. doesnt it make you want to go to japan tho?_

_Like, a lot, yes._

A couple of minutes pass, and I drink my chamomile, and then another text comes in. _So this is never going to happen, but if the label ever sends me on tour in Japan, I’ll bring you along. We can pretend you’re in my band_

My fingers hover over the keypad — I can’t tell if Patrick’s serious or just joking around, and I suddenly really wish we were talking face to face. We would be right here at the kitchen table, and he would scoop up some honey and dump it in his mug, stirring to make it melt as we talk, all the while curling his lip in disgust because he hates the taste of it but it helps with his voice. _guess_ _im taking up my bass again_ , I text back.

~

The morning after the Dresden Dolls show, I get a call from a guy who has some records he thinks we might be interested in. Usually, I would tell him to just bring the stuff in, but he tells me he’s got movers coming and he’s going to throw everything away if I don’t take it off his hands, which doesn’t seem like the best thing to tell someone you’re trying to enter into a business deal with, but whatever. Something tells me I should go, so when Joe comes in with Andy-the-tattooed-drummer on his tail, already deep into a heated discussion about their respective top five heavy metal vocalists, I briefly explain the situation and head out. 

The house is huge and very beautiful, though clearly on the way to being dismantled and cleared out. There are bright abstract paintings and large photo prints everywhere, but they’re all on the floor, propped against the walls, some already hidden away behind dust sheets. The guy introduces himself as Sam. He has soft hands, sandy blonde hair and he’s wearing a blue sweater and corduroy pants. He looks expensive, but his voice is as soft as his hands as he makes small talk and coffee before showing me to the study, where a few hundred records are carefully organized in custom-made wooden boxes on the floor. 

The Psychedelic Furs concert promo poster framed on the far wall makes me think I might be onto something good, and as I start going through the records, I realize two things: one, this is a fucking incredible collection, and two, I can’t possibly afford buying even half of this stuff off him. 

“So what do you say?” Sam asks, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

I’m trying to come up with a dignified way to tell him that I’d estimate these are worth about as much as my whole store, employees included, when he goes on, “I was thinking a hundred dollars.”

“For which one?” I ask, caught. 

“All of them.”

“No, listen— some of these are worth like five hundred on their own.”

“Oh, I know. But I want them gone, no, I need them gone. They’re not all mine, but you see, my... partner left abruptly and I don’t want to be here if…” his face crumples a bit on itself. “There was this student, you see. Just turned twenty-one. So, you see why I would— yeah.”

This story, this whole scene makes me so sad, I almost don’t care about the records anymore. And I haven’t missed the way he’s been avoiding using any type of pronouns. (Oh my god, is that the first UK pressing of _Unknown Pleasures_? The ruby red vinyl one? I said _almost_.)

“Your partner — does he know you’re doing this?” 

Sam gives me a startled look. “Not exactly, no.”

“Sorry. It’s okay, though—” I say, trying to reassure him. “I’m not—” and then I stop, because I realize now that I have never said it before. Not like this, out loud, in the harsh light of day, in a stranger’s house. 

A kind stranger who’s offering me an out: “A bigot?” he suggests, with a wobbly smile.

But not even I am that much of a coward, so I say, at least, “Not straight.”

“Oh,” he says, and he doesn’t look exactly surprised as much as curious. “That’s good to know. I mean— good that you know that. About yourself. I wasn’t hitting on you just now. Not that you’re not— you’re very attractive. But I’m not— it’s too soon, you know?”

My cheeks burn and I suddenly want to retreat inside my hoodie like a turtle. But I also want to give him a hug, and punch his ex for him. He’s so awkward, and so nice, and his partner must be such an asshole. If I had such a nice boyfriend with such soft hands I would never dump him for a twenty-one-year-old. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” I croak out eventually, digging up a smile. “Let me just— take another look here.”

It’s a perfect collection — idiosyncratic, maybe, but exactly my kind of idiosyncratic. It skews British and new wave and post-punk and shoegaze-y and this guy has amassed so many original first pressings of The Cure albums that I have tears in my eyes. But the thing is, Sam might regret it, his asshole partner might come back with his tail between his legs and if Sam wants to take him back, then what? However—

“I’ll take these two off your hands,” I say. “And I can recommend someone who’s better than me with this stuff, rarities and first pressings and so on. You can get a quote and like, give everything to charity if you want, but I can’t do this, it’s not right, I’m sorry.”

Sam doesn’t get mad, but he does look even more teary. Mostly to distract him, at this point, I try to offer him a hundred dollars for the two records, to which he smiles and says ten, so then I say eighty, and he says twenty, and we finally shake on forty. And then I tell him to take care and leave his house with a Joy Division record worth several hundred dollars and a brand-new vinyl, still in its shiny plastic sleeve, of the _Lost in Translation_ soundtrack. 

~

A weird feeling of anticipation follows me around for most of the following week. It’s like I keep waiting for something to happen, like fate has something in store for me, but the main events are actually things like Joe leaving work early for band practice twice (if I didn’t know better I’d say he has a big crush on Andy, and maybe he does, but it’s a strictly musical, strictly platonic crush); Travie asking me no fewer than three times, studiously casual, whether I’ve heard from Laura yet; a phone call from my mom, inquiring if I have someone new in my life and asking for the two-hundredth time why I had to leave that wonderful girl (by some miracle I find the strength not to hang up on her); Patrick calling me most nights, as I grow more afraid for his producer’s life with every call; and Mikey coming over once more, late on Thursday night. We have a drink or two and I blow him on the couch and he drags me to bed and we kiss and kiss, until I’m breathless and ready to fall apart at the slightest touch, which I eventually do, and then he falls asleep, once again, weary and sticky and close.

There was a moment, last summer, at the concert where I lost you, though I didn’t know it yet — we were in the middle of the crowd, no one was looking at us, everyone focused on the stage as Robert Smith started singing “Show me, show me, show me” — and we were never big on PDAs, me and you, to put it mildly, but in that moment it really felt like I was actually there _with you_ , drowning in the same wall of sound, and I buried my head under your jaw and kissed your neck and felt so hopelessly and stupidly smitten and I said, “God, what would I ever do without you, Mikeyway?”

And you said, you told me — “You’d be okay. You would be just fine.”

You were wrong. I haven’t been fine or okay, without you. Missing you was an open wound that would never start healing, probably because I didn’t even want it to. I needed that aching, bloody reminder of you. But the thing is, you’re here with me now, and I kind of miss you anyway. I look at you in my bed, and I feel homesick. 

In the morning, I wake up alone. My heart sinks, but it’s not like it was soaring particularly high in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest THANK YOU to [Fluffy_Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffy_Stuff/pseuds/Fluffy_Stuff), who's been saving me from having nervous breakdowns over each chapter <333
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ACgUqiyYhAVJUxO5xdyND?si=UPKE1jAUSfyCWdxrhFR8oQ)! | [tumblr](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> I listened to [way too much Bon Iver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFhnY1in5I) while writing this chapter;
> 
> Tragically, the _Lost in Translation_ OST isn't on Spotify, but some kind soul made [a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7LyiGVlYKJgdPBcZQ3e7Vv?si=zgu6BGetTWCK70_T61lftQ) with many of the songs in it, including the Patti Smith/Prince cover Patrick is very delighted with; 
> 
> The Cure are playing [Just Like Heaven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar3gpz9HXjc).


	6. Everything Hits at Once

> **regretwillalwaysgetyouintheend.blogspot.com/  
>  3/23/2006 - 00:39 CST**
> 
> **done**
> 
> i have this weird theory about the cold. as in, i don’t really feel it. or maybe i don’t remember feeling it. it’s kind of like how we’re supposed to dream every single night and when you say 'i didn’t dream last night' it’s actually just that you don’t remember. so i don’t remember being cold last winter, though abstractly i know on a certain night after a certain show i was wearing two hoodies and my parka and p’s scarf-- which of course wasn’t his yet, since he didn’t know i existed and i didn’t know he did back then, which feels as unreal as last winter’s weather-- but what i remember about that night is your smirk and your fingers clutching the back of my neck and you kissing me outside your room and taking off all my clothes and i probably shivered then, because i know it was fucking cold, outside and inside, and so i know i must have shivered with the icy air crawling over my skin but all i remember is being wrapped up in you. that warmth. 
> 
> i guess what i’m trying to say here is this year, right now, you touch me, and i shiver. i still want you, it still burns -- except it burns like ice before your nervous system realizes it’s actually freezing. 
> 
> i guess what i’m trying to say here is my nervous system has realized i’m 

~

Friday night is now band practice night for Joe, and instead of everyone going out and getting drunk, Travie and I have just a couple of drinks and then catch up with him and Andy after practice, and then we all go eat something at Joe and Marie’s. It’s a weird mix of teenagers making noise in a garage and grown-ups having civilized dinner, but it works. Andy brings whatever he can rescue from the vegan café where he works — slightly crooked cupcakes, chunks of huge chocolate chip cookies. It’s nice, and good for our livers, and I love chatting with Marie and ganging up on Joe with her.

By the time we’ve eaten and Joe has talked me into smoking with him because doing it on his own is less fun and Marie’s taking a break and Andy’s straightedge, it’s well past midnight. It’s not too cold for April in Chicago, and as soon as I step out of Joe’s building, well-fed and mildly high, I decide to walk home. I pull up my collar against the wind and pull on my headphones against the world and click on the as-yet-untitled playlist on my iPod; it’s something I’ve been working on for a week or so. I walk home and pretend I’m shooting a video clip — I’m not in the band, not even a main character, just one of the many nameless extras walking the street, all of us snuggled in our jackets against the last remnants of winter, walking alone on the shiny pavement wet with rain, moving between the neon lights of the city that wash out our faces, making ghosts out of us. The wind’s almost warm, and at one point it stops blowing in my face and starts pushing me forward, like the hand of a helpful stranger, _go on, go home_. 

So I walk, and Robert Smith sings how _it was the hope of all we might have been that filled me with the hope to wish impossible things_ , and Karen O pleads that _they won’t love you like I love you_ , and as I’m sliding the key in my front door, I think that this sounds a lot like a break-up playlist. 

I wake up at what feels like the crack of dawn to Patrick’s voice from the living room, swearing profusely, trying and failing to do it quietly. It’s not like he’s shouting, really, but I forgot to close my bedroom door, which I haven’t had to do for the past two weeks while he was away. He must have just got in and he’s probably fighting with his backpack or his guitar case or his headphones.

I should get up, close the door, but it’s not really bothering me. He’s stopped swearing and I just listen to him shuffling around, the ambient music of him getting ready for bed, or a nap — he probably slept on the plane already, he told me once that flying makes him sleepy — and it feels nice to know he’s going to be here when I wake up. I realize I’m smiling into the pillow and then I curl up around it and go back to sleep. 

~

A few days after I bump into Laura at the Metro, she actually calls and comes to see me at the store. I text Travie to please come in, claiming an emergency and hoping he will behave like a good business partner for once in his life. I turn over our BE RIGHT BACK sign, lock the door, and lead her to my favorite coffee place.

It’s a cold, sunny, perfect morning, and Laura looks striking in a butter-soft leather jacket and a huge blood-red scarf. She’s wearing glasses today and as we enter the coffeeshop they fog up. She takes them off and wipes them on the hem of her sweater with a long-suffering sigh. The same thing always happens to Patrick when he comes home from the cold outside and he gets so huffy every single time. 

“What’s that smile for?” she asks as we sit down at my usual table.

I shrug and wave Ryan over. Laura gets a flat white, I get my usual order of cream and sugar and two shots of espresso, and then we give our best performance in the role of two adults who haven’t seen each other since high school catching up. She tells me about moving to NYC, her career as a music photographer and all the bands she’s worked with and her less profitable but more interesting personal projects, like the one about the German squatters. She tells me about rave parties and herb gardens and in exchange, I narrate my much less glamorous life as a record store owner, how I’d tried the music thing before my band had broken apart. 

“What happened to your best friend from school?” Laura asks then. “Sorry, I can’t remember his name.”

“Chris? We don’t really talk anymore.”

“Yeah? So maybe I can tell you this,” she says, leaning towards me slightly and taking a sip from her cup. “I thought he was kind of an asshole.”

“Well, yeah. I think you might have been right,” I confirm, and then I suddenly don’t know what to say anymore. I drink my coffee and think it doesn’t quite taste sweet enough, though Ryan has made it as syrupy as ever. 

I look down, pick up the sugar crystals from the table top with my fingertips like it’s a very important task, feeling Laura’s eyes on me all the while. Eventually, she breaks the silence. “So, I have to ask… what brought this on? Why did you suddenly decide to look me up?”

And I might as well tell her about my plan at this point, right? So I do. I tell her about my shitty dating history, and how I’m trying to make my misfortunes make some kind of sense. How she was the first girl to dump me, ever, and the pattern seems to have stuck since then. 

“Hmm,” she says, and looks at me consideringly. “I know it’s been a long time, but… you really can’t think of any reason why I wouldn’t go out with you after our second date?”

I shake my head. I really can’t. 

“Okay, so there were a couple of things. Like — you invited me to your house, and it was like walking into an actual John Hughes movie, I felt so out of place. But you were so cute, and I guess I could have gotten over it, you know, if you didn’t give me mono.”

“I— what?”

She bursts out laughing, tamping it down immediately, and says, “You don’t remember? You gave me fucking _mono_! I had to stay home for like three weeks, it was a whole mess. I thought, clearly you were going out with some other girl who’d given it to you, and my mom wanted to murder me — and uhm, actually, you should be grateful I protected your identity, she totally wanted to come to your house and have a few choice words with you parents.”

“Oh my god, I swear I didn’t know. Shit, I’m sorry. And I’m sure you don’t care anymore, but I wasn’t going out with anyone else. I liked you so much, I would never.”

“Really?”

“Really. I promise.” 

“I believe you. Well, _now_ I believe you.” She shakes her head, curls going every which way. “God, you were so sweet, and you made me that great mixtape, and then I got sick and I felt so stupid.”

“For what it’s worth, I was completely gone on you. I’m really sorry,” and I’m trying to be serious, but it’s a losing battle, it’s too surreal. “I’m so sorry for giving you fucking mono.” 

Laura meets my eyes and she’s laughing, too, before trying to school her face into some kind of seriousness. She takes my hand, squeezes it softly and says almost solemnly: “No, I should be the one to apologize. I should have told you! Ugh, teenage me was a bitch.”

“It’s fine,” I say, and take a sip of my coffee, which finally isn’t scalding anymore. “Even if you thought I was a slut who made out with half the school.”

“Oh my god,” she gasps, and we’re off laughing again, unable to stop now, and it’s nice. It’s like we’re two dumb teenagers again, and I can easily see myself falling for her — she’s beautiful and smart and funny, and maybe just a bit out of my league now, but it’s not like I’ve ever let that stop me. But it’s not going to happen, and I’ll never know what it would be like to actually be with her.

So when our laughter finally dies down I pay for our coffees, and she walks me back to the store, where Travie is sitting behind the counter, flicking through some magazine and looking extremely bored. Until he sees Laura step in after me, and he straightens up, letting the magazine drop to the floor and reaching up to fix his hair. I try not to laugh, and make up an excuse about having to make a phone call in the office, and leave them alone to blush and exchange numbers and, hopefully, not make out on my cash register. Though I’m one to talk — I did unspeakable things with Mikey in this very room, not too long ago. At least it was outside store hours, I tell myself.

~

In the least surprising development ever, Travie and Laura start dating. Their dates are the most pretentious ever — art exhibitions and readings and performances. Laura also comes along sometimes when we go to shows, usually taking photos under the stage for the first few songs in every band’s set. Then she comes back out to hang with us, her hair in the high bun she does when she’s working, always wearing black head to toe, and Travie looks at her like she hung the moon and the stars.

Tonight we’re just at the bar, though, and it’s the two lovebirds, Joe and Marie, and me, and I’m happy for them, I swear I am, but I’m really fucking glad when Patrick joins us. This is so middle school of me, but I feel like everybody has somebody except for me. Except I do have somebody, or half of him anyway. Well, maybe not even half. A smaller fraction, one-fourth or two-tenths or three…

“Is ‘twentieth’ right? I mean, is that a word?”

“Like, the fraction? I… think so.”

Anyone else would ask me why I need to know that right this moment, sitting slightly drunk at a table in our usual bar, but Patrick just goes with it, and I love this about him. 

“Yes, twentieth sounds right,” Laura interjects, and at that point everyone starts asking why we’re talking about math and Joe — obviously — says something about math rock and Marie looks at me and rolls her eyes dramatically and Patrick and Travie start talking about the new Battles EP and Laura says, deadpan, “Oh no, we’ve lost them.” 

It’s a good night, but I still don’t get to hold hands with anyone under the table, which is apparently my heart’s desire. What I get is a shared cab home with Patrick and a booty text at 1 a.m. 

I allow myself to feel a flash of irritation. I could have been asleep, right? Except Mikey knows me, and he knows my insomnia’s gotten bad again, and _QED_ — I’m wide awake. Anyway, I think about inviting him over, and tiptoeing to the door in order not to wake up my roommate. I think about fooling around in my bed and having to be quiet for the same reason. It’s not super appealing, and even less so after I peek into the living room and find said roommate, still awake, wearing his headphones and the focused expression he only gets when he’s poking at GarageBand. 

I plop down on the opposite end of the couch, fold up my knees against my chest. Patrick looks up from his laptop and smiles at me, goes to take off his headphones but I shake my head at him — _keep doing your thing_ — and I get my book from the top of the book pile that serves as an end table. Not for the first time, I wish I were the kind of person who uses actual bookmarks, but I’m not, so I find the last dog-eared page and start reading again. _Renouncing things is less difficult than people believe: it’s all a matter of getting started. Once you’ve succeeded in dispensing with something you thought essential, you realize you can also do without something else, then without many other things._

It’s almost pitch black outside, as silent as it can get on this street, and I sink into the couch and my book until I could as well disappear into thin air. Then something touches my ankle and I startle, hard, my heart jumping in my throat. 

“Sorry,” Patrick says. “You okay? You looked like you were falling asleep…”

“Yeah, no, don’t worry, just got lost in my own head.” I breathe and focus on the warmth bleeding from Patrick’s fingers into my skin through my jeans. I really need to get a decent night’s sleep. I think if we could stay here like this I could probably fall asleep for real and doze until morning. I kind of wish we were really drunk and I had some kind of excuse to lay my head on his shoulder and drift off. Which is definitely my cue to go the fuck to bed. “I should probably—”

“Yeah, me too. It’s like— fuck, half past two,” Patrick says, and removes his hand from my ankle, leaving it cold and lonely. I suddenly remember that I never replied to Mikey’s text.

We say goodnight, and I look at my phone again once I’m back in my room. Mikey texted again, not long ago, _Everything okay?_

 _sorry_ , I lie. _fell asleep. raincheck?_

_Sure, goodnight. Xx_

~

I feel bad about the lie. Weirdly, I’ve never really lied to you before. It’s one of the only non-fucked-up things in our so-called relationship, one of the things that I’m shamefully proud of — sure, I’m in a part-requited-at-best friends-with-benefits kind of situation with a guy who’s engaged to someone else, but you know. At least we’re honest about it. 

A few months ago you came into my store unannounced and dripped rain on my records and kissed me in the office where I have to pretend to be an adult and a professional every day, contaminating it with memories that will now haunt that place until I die, or sell it. And you keep telling me we don’t have to hide, so I figure I’m allowed to drop by your work as well — plus, I’m starting to feel like I’m living in some kind of reverse Cinderella world, and this way I get to see you before midnight strikes for a change.

I get there around lunchtime, figuring we can go get something to eat together — but you’re apparently very happy to see me, and I get dragged into the back alley behind the comic book store, which you explain is where you take your cigarette breaks before pinning me against the brick wall and kissing me hard. This is the point where my brain disengages, usually, but it stays online today, all too alert. This should be exciting and sexy and illicit-like and I should be all over you, but all I can think is I’m so tired of being a secret, only good for back alleys and dirty whispers in the dark. 

You break off to catch your breath and say, dragging the words against my throat, “God, we’re going to be old and gray and married to other people and I’ll still want to do this with you.”

I shiver reflexively, because your teeth graze my neck and because that means you’re smiling, like what you just said is something I’m supposed to want — and I get how it might be what _you_ want, your idea of romance, but it drops like lead in my stomach and suddenly your fingers around my wrist feel cruel, your body caging me in against the wall feels oppressive. Everything hits at once and it’s too real, it’s all too much. 

“That’s—” I stutter, starting to panic. You press a kiss under my chin, soft and warm, and that’s enough to remind me that it’s you. It’s us, and pushing you away feels kind of like tearing a chunk off my own insides. “That’s like— the opposite of what I want.”

You draw yourself up then, take a half step back. The distance reminds me of our height difference and how I’ve barely noticed it lately, because we tend to be horizontal or stuck very close against each other whenever we’re together. You don’t speak, you just look at me warily and refuse to make this any easier. Well, then. 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.” I sound exactly as cool and collected as I absolutely do not feel. This is a thing my brain does, my standard defense mechanism of going numb. I hate that it’s happening with you.

“What did I do?” you ask, urgently, as you reach out and grab my hand. 

“Nothing, you’re fine, it’s just— I’m a greedy, needy asshole, okay? I want to— I know how stupid it sounds, but I want to find my fucking soulmate, and I want to be their one and only. I want to be with someone who thinks about me half as much as I think about them. I want someone to be obsessed with _me_ for once.”

“But Pete, listen—” I’ve never heard your voice sound so rough before. I look up, because I delivered my teen love manifesto while looking down at our clasped hands, and see with horror that your face isn’t doing much better. You’re visibly trying not to cry, and not even doing a great job of it. My ice-queen front promptly crumbles like dust. I squeeze your hand, and you reach for my other one and hang on, our warm palms pressed together so hard I can feel our pulses beating, both fast for a different reason this time. You swallow thickly, then say, “I’m sorry, fuck, I’m so sorry, I thought you were okay with this, but you’re not, clearly, so maybe. We can talk about it, we can change things, I can—”

“Mikey, don’t—” I pull you in and you touch your forehead to mine and breathe deeply, close your eyes. I wish we could just stay here like this, without saying another word. Words aren’t going to change anything, there’s no way back from this, whatever you say is only going to make it hurt worse. 

“I’ll cancel the wedding,” you murmur, so softly that I can barely hear you over the sound of our heavy breaths. “I— just tell me what to do, please.”

My eyes sting and I have to force the words past the lump in my throat. “No, fuck— don’t say that. Not for me, okay? Don’t get married if you’re not sure about it, just don’t do it for me. That’s not what I want.”

Your eyes are still squeezed shut. “Okay. Okay,” you whisper, and it’s eerily similar to the way I try to talk myself down from a panic attack. Fuck, I never wanted to give you a panic attack. I never wanted to hurt you. God, this is the worst. 

“Listen, I’m not saying goodbye. We can be friends — for real, this time. And we can talk about it. We can talk about anything. Let’s just, like, take a few weeks to get past this, okay?”

You don’t say anything for a few moments, and I’m starting to wonder if you will just leave, but then you say, “I’m not sure a few weeks are going to cut it,” and you’re sounding less choked up, less on the brink of a breakdown, so I count that as a win. 

“A month, then, or whatever, and as soon as we can see each other without falling into bed, we’re going to grab a beer and talk.”

“Okay, okay,” you say again. “Give me one second.” You dry your eyes with the heel of your hand. They look a bit puffy, and your nose is red, and you’re the most beautiful, fragile thing. You look at me, through lashes wet with tears I put there myself, your face as open and unguarded as when you’re asleep. I’m never going to watch as you fall asleep in my bed again, I think, and it hurts. I shut my eyes against it and then I feel your lips against mine, one last kiss.

The memory of our first kiss is foggy, muddled by time and alcohol and, looking back, something close to mania. This one, though — the spring breeze ruffling your hair, your lips tasting of smoke and salt, the bricks rough against my back — I’m keeping it forever.


	7. If I Ever Feel Better

The kiss, like all things, ends, and you step back, reach with trembling fingers into your back pocket for your cigarettes. You fumble with the lighter, so I put my hand on yours to help steady you, but of course I’m only shaking harder. You manage to light up eventually, and I want to steal a cigarette from you, steal another six to seven minutes with you, but I’m already jealous of the smoke touching your lips, and I have to get used to this, so I just leave. I say goodbye, you bite your lip, I turn around.

Somehow I get home, and text Travie and Joe to tell them they’re on their own for the afternoon, and then I stand inside the door and stop. I should eat something, I think — it was lunchtime, I’d wanted to take you to lunch — but my stomach turns at the very thought. I want to curl up in bed but my bed makes me think of you. My bed, my whole bedroom, my office at the store, the couch. I sit at the kitchen table and give in to my little spiral with my face pressed against my crossed arms. I’m expecting a panic attack — it would almost be a relief, like thunder breaking, but it doesn’t come. I sit still instead and feel my body start aching everywhere; it’s a dull sort of pain, like pressing on a bruise, sparking from my lower back and flowing down the bones in my legs and up through my chest. It’s physical pain without a physical cause and it creeps me out, this new way my brain has devised to hurt me. I wonder if this is what whoever invented the word heartbreak was talking about. I wonder if the fact that this hurts so damn much means that it was true love, whatever that is. I wonder if I have just fucked up my whole life, if you were the best I would ever get. At least you have someone else to help you through whatever you’re feeling, someone to take your mind off me, while I— well. I don’t. 

I realize distantly that I’m not doing great. Maybe I’m not falling apart, but this is not what keeping it together looks like. I sink my fingernails into the flesh of my palms and try focusing on that sharper pain, to give myself something I can control. I breathe in. I breathe out. I hang on.

I’m not sure how much time passes before Patrick finds me. I hear the door opening and closing, his footsteps, and then there’s a warm hand on my nape and his voice, a tense whisper, saying my name. I turn to look at him, slowly, without raising my head. I must have been crying, because the sleeve of my hoodie under my cheek is wet, and my head feels heavy and tender as if it’s filled with lead. “Hey,” I whisper back.

“Joe called me,” Patrick says. “Asked me if I could check in on you. You okay?”

There’s really no point in pretending, not when I’m such a mess. “No,” I say, and then, “Sorry.”

“What for?” he asks softly, and drags a chair closer so that he can sit right next to me, keeping his hand where it is. I am so stupidly grateful to have someone close that I don’t even know how to express it, so I just say sorry again, a few times. It’s an all-purpose sorry, really, and I hope Patrick gets how it applies to most of my existence in regards to his. He signed up for a roommate, someone to talk music and watch old movies and share a pizza with at best, and this is what he got. 

“Stop, stop, it’s okay,” he says, and I realize I’ve been saying sorry maybe more than a few times, and I shut up. “What happened?”

“What do you think?” I mutter.

“You and Mikey had a fight?”

“We broke up. I—” my voice breaks. “I broke up with him. For real.”

Patrick strokes my hair back from my forehead, and there are many things he could say, things like _It was about time_ or, _It’s for the best_ or, _Oh god, fucking finally_ , and he would be right,but what he actually says is, “Oh, Pete, I’m so sorry.”

I sniffle pathetically and he pulls me back from the table and into a hug. I cling to him, probably too hard, and sob some more as he strokes my back. And maybe I do fall apart now, sort of, but I feel like I can do that as long as he holds me tight.

Patrick spends the rest of the day babysitting me. He makes me a sandwich and pours me a glass of water and sits patiently beside me while I try to find the will to eat. Then he drags me out of the kitchen, places me on the couch and puts on _Josie and the Pussycats,_ then _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ , without asking for my input, which is great, since making any kind of decision is the very last thing I want to do right now. And he doesn’t try to make small talk, just stays close as he works on his laptop while I half-watch the movies, half-doze off. 

The next time I open my eyes the TV is off, and Patrick’s standing up, humming and stretching his arms above his head. I have a bitter taste in my mouth and what feels like cotton balls in my head, but the weird all-over ache is gone. I sit up, and Patrick looks at me. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Nothing comes out on my first attempt to speak, so I clear my throat and try again. “Better. Thank you for, um, you know—” I gesture vaguely to the whole human mess tableau, trying to convey the meaning of _taking care of me as I go through the consequences of yet another disaster of my own creation_ without actually having to say the words.

“Um, no problem, really,” Patrick says, summoning a little tired smile for me. “I was going to bed, but if you wanted to talk or anything—”

I cover a yawn with the back of my hand. “No, no, I’m fine. What time is it?” The sky outside is dark, or as dark as it gets in the city, and all the lights in the apartment are off except the reading lamp next to the couch. 

“Dunno,” Patrick mumbles, fighting off a yawn too. “Late.”

I stand up, slowly, and look at my open bedroom door. It looks back at me, the dark interior waiting to bury me in memories and anxiety and, if I actually manage to pass out after sleeping the afternoon off like an idiot, nightmares. I take one reluctant step towards it. 

Patrick puts a hand on my arm, stopping my walk to the gallows. I look at him, but he’s looking at the floor, biting his lip. “Um— you can sleep with me,” he blurts out, meeting my eyes now. “If you’d rather— I mean. If you think it might help?”

I can only imagine how pitiful I must look for him to come up with this offer, but I don’t even care. I’ve always hated sleeping alone. I don’t think I’ll actually sleep, but having someone close has always helped, and besides, you don’t refuse an offer born of such extreme fucking kindness. “Are you really sure?”

“Yeah, come on. But I really have to sleep soon, I have a thing in the morning.”

“I— yeah. Yeah, okay, thank you.” 

I go into my room to change and plug in my phone to charge. The place doesn’t feel so threatening now that I know I don’t have to spend the night rolling around in my own bed. The phone, of course, is lying in wait like. I check my messages — there’s a few from Joe, Travie, and even Laura, variations on the theme of _we know you’re alive, no thanks to you, asshole, anyway, we love you_ ; nothing from Mikey, obviously. It’s fine, it’s not like there’s anything he or I could say to make this better.

Ten minutes later, I find Patrick sitting on his bed wearing sweatpants and a striped tee, poking at his phone. I stand in the middle of the room, in boxers and my ancient The Queen Is Dead t-shirt that is perfectly soft with use but has too many holes to wear outside the house, and try to come up with something to say. Finally, I manage, “What kind of thing do you have in the morning?” 

“Oh, an interview. With, like, I don’t even know — a web radio, whatever that is.” He rolls his eyes, which encapsulates his usual stance on his label’s promotional efforts. “Let’s sleep?” 

And just like that, he gets in bed. I thought this would be more awkward, that he’d face away from me, but instead he lies down on his side, his back to the wall, and looks at me expectantly until I crawl in after him. Then he pulls the blanket over us both and curls closer. “Turn off the light?” he murmurs, and I do, and then burrow under the blanket until I’m right up against him. 

He hums into his pillow, already looking sleep-soft like he often is in the morning, when he gets up late and is nonverbal and rumpled before coffee and a shower and whatever he needs to actually wake up. “’Night,” he mumbles. He puts a hand on my bicep, squeezing softly. “Try to get some sleep, okay?” And then his eyes slide closed and he’s gone. 

I’ve always been jealous of anyone who’s able to just drift off like that, but right now I’m just glad Patrick doesn’t share my fraught relationship with sleep. His hand is still on my arm, warm, getting heavier as he falls deeper into sleep. He hasn’t stopped touching me all day, I realize now — his hand on the back of my neck in the kitchen, his fingers resting gently on my ankle as he worked and I kind-of watched the movies, as if trying to keep me there, to ground me. It was exactly what I didn’t know I needed. 

~

_They say an end can be a start_ — it doesn’t feel true, not yet, not exactly, but I try to repeat this to myself like an indie pop mantra as I go about the next few days. I focus on work by day — in fact, I wish there was a bit more work to focus on— and avoid going out by night, so that I won’t be tempted to drink too much and conveniently forget I’m not supposed to text Mikey. I don’t sleep much, but what else is new. 

I stay up most of Friday night, reading, then filling a notebook with god knows what, and finally pass out well after dawn. My brain refuses to hear the alarm and, by the time I manage to roll out of bed, it’s horribly late. My hair is more of a disaster than usual, and I don’t have time to wash it and tame it with product, so I just steal Patrick’s gray beanie on the way out the door. 

Joe is already in, and there’s coffee and a paper bag from Andy’s café waiting on the counter. “I love you, Trohman,” I announce, making a beeline for the coffee. 

He reaches out from behind the counter to rip off my earbuds and says, “Love you too, but there’s no need to scream it at the top of your lungs.” Then he frowns, pulls one earbud close to his ear and adds, “What the fuck, are you still listening to the Smiths? All this Morrissey can’t be good for you, dude.”

“What? You have multiple Smiths tattoos on your body, man.”

“Well, yeah, but still. Not the best choice when you’re all—” 

I raise an eyebrow, or try to at least, and look at him expectantly. We both know my love life imploded less than a week ago, but Joe isn’t usually one to point out the existence of feelings. True to form, he deflates. 

“I mean, not this early in the morning.” He pushes the paper bag towards me apologetically. I open it and sniff the sugary smell and reach inside. We share a pink donut and a chocolate one, and we’re back to being best friends. 

As usual for a Saturday, as the day goes by the hipsters come out in force. By midafternoon we have a full house — all three of us plus more than a dozen people browsing the aisles. The noise and chatter are starting to give me a headache, or maybe it’s the lack of sleep catching up with me; anyway, I go and hide in the back.

I’ve been thinking about my heartbreak list. Catching up with Laura turned out to be a much better idea than it seemed originally, and maybe that means I should quit while I’m ahead; or maybe I should keep with the plan after all. It’s not like I have a lot to lose.

The next item on the list is Heather. Heather who pushed me in the pool of my own sexual confusion way before I was ready. Heather who, in the end, was right. 

I know, from something Mikey once said, that Alicia is still in touch with Heather, so I call her and ask. She sounds surprised to hear from me, but not angry or weirded out. She tells me she’ll text me Heather’s number, and then I ask her how Mikey’s doing. 

Alicia sighs. “He’s— well, he’s back home, visiting his brother.” She hesitates then, like she’s not sure how much she should share, how much I already know. It feels like there’s a story there, in the way she says those words, like _home_ and _brother_ stand in for something else. I don’t really want to tell her that I don’t know anything, because Mikey never told me anything, because we didn’t talk much. I don’t want her to have to think about what we did instead. 

“Pete,” she says, while I’m still struggling with words. “You know I— I was okay with it. With you two. Really. I can’t say you made him happy, because, well.” Another sigh. “But I think you were good for him. And he really cares for you.”

“In his own way,” I say, reflexively — it’s what I’ve been telling myself all this time — and then I stop. You care for me, and Alicia knows. I still love you, but maybe in a different way, and Alicia knows that, too, and she doesn’t hate me, and you’ve fucked off to Jersey but maybe, when you’re back, I can find out what’s going on with you, and what’s up with your brother, and we can work on that friendship thing. 

Alicia and I listen to each other breathe, for too long maybe, but it feels less awkward as the seconds tick by, and the buzzing static in my head settles, the silence feels brighter, like a fogged-up glass clearing. “I know,” I say, eventually. “Me too. Tell him I said hi when you talk to him?”

“Of course. And good luck with Heather. She’s— well. You’ll see.”

We say goodbye, and my hands are shaking so hard that I have trouble hanging up. After this conversation, even talking to Heather doesn’t seem so daunting anymore, but that doesn’t mean I feel like calling her up immediately. I copy the number Alicia texted me on a scrap of paper and slide it into my wallet, where I can pretend to forget about it for a few more days. 

~

On the way home, I get takeout from Patrick’s favorite Indian restaurant. I figure it’s the least I can do to repay him for taking care of me these past few days. If I think too hard about it, I might never be able to look into his face again, and I really like his face, so I decide not to think about it at all.

When I get home, though, Patrick is visibly pissed off, stalking around the living room like a wild animal. A couple of empty beer bottles sit on the floor and he’s nursing another, even though it’s barely six p.m. 

“Hey,” I say, stepping in cautiously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him frown so hard, not even when he’s fighting with GarageBand. “Everything okay?”

Patrick turns sharply toward me; clearly he didn’t hear me come in. “Yeah, sorry.” He seems to collect himself, adding: “Hi. Oh, is that food?” 

“Yep.” I hold up the takeout bag like an offering to an irritable minor god.

“Oh, great, thanks, I’m starving.” He smiles, touches the back of his neck, then says again, “Sorry. I’ll set the table, or whatever.”

So I grab two more beers from the fridge while he makes some space for our food on the living room table, moving aside an assortment of cds, magazines and notebooks of uncertain ownership. “So,” I finally ask, as I take out the containers from the bag. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

Patrick sighs. “Yeah. This blogger posted a review of my album and I’m just— _grrr_.” He starts on his fourth beer, and I briefly consider telling him he should maybe pace himself a bit, but just push the lemon rice toward him instead. “And it’s like,” he goes on, but at least he’s grabbing a fork. “I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but I worked so much on this and it’s frustrating that people don’t get it.”

“A blogger? Anyone important?”

“Just some local guy, but I like what he writes usually. Which only makes this worse, obviously.”

“Can I see it?”

“It’s really awful, though,” he says, but he’s already getting up to get his laptop. 

_What do you get if you make Marvin Gaye the singer of a pop-punk band? I don’t know, but not whatever this is, despite what Patrick Stump might think._ That’s how the review opens, and it doesn’t get much better after that. It sounds like the guy listened to Patrick’s album, wasn’t able to categorize it into any of his little sub-genres, and decided that this meant the album was flawed. The last sentence reads, _I was hoping the scene would offer something better to welcome me back home_ , and wow, this guy sounds like a real piece of work.

“What kind of asshole writes something like this?” I wonder aloud. “But seriously, Patrick, you can’t please everyone, and especially not every stupid snobby blogger who’s probably jealous of anyone local getting any kind of success. I know bad reviews suck, like— believe me, I remember, we got plenty with my old band, but really, this is just a shitty blog. You got seven point seven—”

“On Pitchfork, I know—”

“On fucking Pitchfork, dude!” 

“Right,” he says, around a bite of naan bread. He gulps down some more beer. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Listen, your album is amazing, and I’m not just saying it to make you feel better. I mean it. It’s incredible. Fuck this guy.”

Patrick smiles at me and maybe blushes a bit, or perhaps his cheeks were already a little pink, from the beer and indignation. In any case, he looks softer, less like a grenade ready to explode. I got a lot of food, but a look at the containers on the table shows we have managed to demolish everything. I drain my beer, look at the empty bottle in my hand for a moment. “Another round?” 

“Why not? I mean, at this point—” he trails off into a giggle, looking painfully young for a second.

We’re all out of beer, but I manage to find an unopened bottle of white wine sitting at the back of the fridge, something that someone brought for a party, I forget when, long before I met Patrick. 

Patrick has relocated to the couch, legs pulled up, looking tiny and a bit tired, but at least not murderous anymore. We clink our glasses and I say, “To seven point seven on Pitchfork.”

Patrick just shakes his head and this time blushes for real. “Quit it. You know, I wouldn’t even care if he’d ripped into the lyrics. I know my lyrics suck.”

“That’s not true.” 

“It’s fine, I just don’t think my brain works that way. Or, like—” he goes on, in a rushed whisper that I have to strain to hear: “Sometimes I think I haven’t lived enough.”

“Write about that, then.”

“Yeah. Maybe I will.”

It’s getting dark, so I click on the reading lamp. The light catches Patrick’s too-long dirty blonde hair, turning it into pure gold. We end up going through the whole bottle, turning the TV on without really watching; it’s only when Patrick asks me how I’m doing, looking serious even as he’s well on his way to being quite drunk, that I remember I should still be a mess; how hopeless I felt just last week, how I crawled into his bed like a little kid, scared of the monsters between my own sheets. 

I register a stab of guilt. Am I already over Mikey, so soon? When did I get this good at repressing my feelings? That’s never been my specialty, to put it mildly. But no, if I just look under the surface, it’s all there — the hurt, missing him. I just forgot for a few hours that he’s not mine anymore, that he won’t text me to ask me if he can spend the night here. Fuck. 

Patrick squeezes my hand, pulling me out of that particular patch of darkness. “It’s going to be okay,” he says. 

I swallow thickly. “Yeah, I know. But keep reminding me?”

“Of course,” he says. “I got you.”

And in that very moment, I believe him. I believe that I can count on him, and that my friends have my back just as much as I have theirs. I’m going to be okay, and Mikey’s going to be okay, and Patrick’s going to be a fucking rockstar, and— 

That’s when my eye falls on Patrick’s laptop, still showing the obnoxious review. Patrick must have scrolled up while I was in the kitchen, because now I can also see the blog header: it says, white gothic letters on black background, _deadxstop_.

~

I do the math, right before finally finding the courage to call Heather, and realize we haven’t talked in six years, though it feels more like sixty. She doesn’t sound too surprised to hear from me, and when I tell her this, she says, “Oh, you know. We’re approaching thirty, people are getting married, time to take stock and whatever.” She chuckles. “I get it. You’re not the first ex-boyfriend who’s called.”

Wow, way to make a guy feel special, Heather. Also, I’m not even twenty-seven yet, fuck you. But I’m the one who called her out of the blue, and I’d still like to get some sort of insight from her, so I try to stay neutral. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, there was this one guy that was just so— please. But I mean, catching up is fine. I’m cool, as long as you’re cool.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been cool in my life. “Cool, as in...?”

“As in… you’re not going through some kind of what-does-it-all-mean thing, are you?”

“Oh, no. Nu-uh, I’m cool. Totally not going through anything of that sort. Nope.” 

“Oh, great, that’s never a good look, you know? Anyway, wanna come to dinner Saturday, then, and we’ll catch up? I have a house now, a husband— I got married, Pete, isn’t it _wild_?”

That’s like, literally the opposite of wild, Heather — I think, but don’t say. “Well, congratulations. So you settled down?”

“More or less,” she chuckles, again, adding distractedly, “You’re not vegan or anything, right?”

What’s wrong with being vegan now? I almost want to say I am, just to mess with her, but in the end I reassure her I’m not, and she promises to send me “the deets.” Apparently, that’s the way she talks, now.

When Heather opens the door, my brain falters. It’s her and yet not — same ice blue eyes, same freckles, but her hair is long and wavy and sandy blonde instead of raven black, and she’s wearing a short flowy dress that she wouldn’t have been caught dead in while we dated. She smiles and steps back to let me in, taking my jacket and hanging it in a built-in closet that looks more spacious than my kitchen. Then she takes my hand and leads me to the living room, where there’s a small crowd of fashionable people, mingling (I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before, but it’s exactly what comes to mind to set this scene — polite chatter, slender glasses full of bubbles, chiming laughter.) Heather waves her arm around my person dramatically and announces, “Everyone, this is Pete. Pete, this is everyone.”

I take a tentative step into the room, taking note of the designer clothes and expensive watches and haircuts and colognes and perfumes, the bossa nova playing softly in the background — I have absolutely nothing against Caetano Veloso and a lot of something against the kind of people who use his masterpieces as ambient music — and realize this evening is going to be a really long nightmare. Heather puts her hand on my arm, politely, the perfect hostess, and guides me to one of the groups. One of the guys greets her with a kiss on her cheek. 

“Pete, this is Gabe,” she says. “My husband.” The guy turns around and smiles at me lazily.

Heather arranges her designer friends around her designer dining table — heavy crystal top supported by a complicated knot of chrome legs — separating couples and alternating genders like the perfect hostess from a vintage etiquette book. I’m the odd one out, so I end up sitting between her and Gabe. 

Heather serves us asparagus soup, a salad with “heirloom tomatoes” and some crumbly cheese and mystery herbs, and roasted goose with potatoes. The wine is red and Italian and Gabe keeps refilling my glass. I was so ready to hate this whole experience, but the potatoes are the best I’ve ever had in my life, the wine is addictive, and Gabe seems like a great guy, with a wicked sense of humor and excellent bone structure. 

I do hate the other guests, at least — they’re all corporate lawyers, like Heather, and spend the evening talking about their job, the money they make, and the things they have bought or want to buy with that money. When the conversation veers toward music it’s even worse, though, as this woman whose name I didn’t catch and who’s wearing an actual pair of pearl earrings professes her love of John Mayer and James Blunt. I look at Heather, appalled, thinking about the Birthday Party and Bauhaus posters in her room off-campus, but she’s nodding along. I imagine what I would do if someone came into my house and said those names in non-disparaging terms. Then I imagine what _Patrick_ would do, and I can’t help snorting softly. It would likely involve fire. Gabe catches my eyes and rolls his to the ceiling. The next time he refills my glass, his fingers brush my wrist on the table. It’s an accident. Probably. He does have very long fingers.

One by one, the other guests leave. Heather sees everyone to the door, dispensing jackets and handbags and kisses on the cheek and cheerful goodbyes. It’s utterly surreal, and I half expect her to peel off her designer clothes like a comic book villain in disguise, revealing a leather skirt with fishnets underneath, and saying _Fooled you_! When all the guests except me are gone, instead, she announces she’s going to tidy up the kitchen, refusing my offers of help. I make noises about leaving but Gabe suggests one last drink and I accept. I’m tipsy and warm and he’s easy to talk to. 

Gabe shows me his records and we start comparing favorite bands. He has excellent taste, and maybe it’s the whiskey — it tastes amazing, unsurprisingly, like smoke and honey — but I’m starting to understand why Heather snatched him up. 

Eventually, she joins us, perching on one end of their huge navy chaise sectional. She watches me, narrowing her eyes slightly. “So, Pete,” she says brusquely, looking for the first time tonight like the razor-sharp girl I remember, minus the septum piercing. “We’re alone now, you can tell me. What brought this on?”

“What brought what on?”

“The phone call, the catching up,” she smirks, making air quotes with her fingers. “Come on, tell me the truth. Break up with a girlfriend or something, lately?”

I’m half-drunk, and a terrible actor even sober, so I don’t even try. “Boyfriend, actually. Or something.”

“Ha, I knew it!” Heather crows. “I knew you were going through some kind of crisis. God, what is it with men and calling their exes to make sense of their mess?”

That’s not a flattering way of looking at my plan, but I suppose she’s not wrong. I still feel stung, and try to hit back. “What is it with you and getting married? I thought monogamy was a tool of the patriarchy.”

“Not if you find the right person,” Heather says, looking at Gabe, her eyes softening and erasing once again any resemblance to the girl I used to date. Gabe, who was watching our exchange as if we were a match of table tennis, now leans over the couch to take her hand and bring it to his lips. 

This is like stepping into an episode of the Addams Family. “I should probably—” I say, starting to get up, but a big, warm hand settles lightly on my knee. Heather is looking at me with another Past Heather expression, this one more hungry than cutting. 

Then Gabe says, “Or you could stay.”

 _Oh_. Could I? I’m thinking about Mikey and Alicia, of course. Getting between another couple doesn’t sound like the best idea. This is different, though, isn’t it? No strings, no feelings, and also an exorcism of sorts. 

I hesitate, and Gabe tilts his head down to kiss me. He’s warm and pushy and nothing like Mikey. I kiss him back, just because, just for a minute, and then I lean back and say, “This was— thanks for tonight. But I think I’m gonna go.”

It’s tempting, but this is not so much making sense of my mess as it is making more of it. There’s a flash of irritation on Heather’s face, and she spits out, “You still haven’t learned to have fun, I see.” 

“Come on, baby, leave him alone.” Gabe says. We’re still sitting close, and he takes my hand just for a second, squeezes it. “If you ever change your mind…”

I’m already in the taxi that’s taking me home when I realize I didn’t even ask Heather why she left me, back then. It’s okay, though, because I realized something tonight: she’s terrible, always has been. I should have been the one to leave her. And it’s not that hard to get to the moral of this story — just say no to terrible things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to [Fluffy_Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffy_Stuff/pseuds/Fluffy_Stuff) for betaing and preventing yet another fic breakdown <333


	8. Hallelujah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warning:** This chapter includes non-graphic references to past attempted non-con. You’ll find asterisks at the beginning and end of the scene if you’d rather skip it and just get to the lighter stuff, and a more detailed (spoilery) description of the content can be found in the end notes. You can also send me a dm or ask (anon is okay) [on Tumblr](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/) if you have any questions. 
> 
> [Here](https://carbonbased000.tumblr.com/post/637755441678532608/some-metacontext-about-my-new-chapter%E2%80%9D) you can read a short meta I wrote to give some context on the scene from the original book and movie that made me decide to include this.

It’s a big weekend—the first show of Joe’s band on Friday, and then Patrick’s record release party, coinciding with his birthday, on Saturday. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Patrick said last week, when he informed me of this double bill of events. 

“What’s not a big deal?”

“Both,” he said. “I mean, _neither_. Neither the record release thing _nor_ my birthday are a big deal. I don’t care. But I have to go, and there’s going to be free booze, so—wanna be my plus one?”

It felt like an offer I cannot possibly refuse, so I didn’t. 

But first: the Damned Boys. 

The venue for the very first public outing of Joe’s band is our usual bar, and Joe must have promised something to Bob, the owner—I’m hoping it’s weed, or sexual favors, and not a lifelong discount at the store which we cannot really afford—in exchange for letting him antagonize the patrons’ eardrums. Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of faith in Joe and Andy’s musical endeavors, but they’ve only been playing together for a few months and there is no way in hell they are any good yet. 

Turns out, it doesn’t really matter. What they might lack in virtuosity or coordination, they certainly make up for with passion and sheer, ear-splitting noise. Andy violently pummels the drums while Joe alternates between playing Mötley Crüe-style riffs, mumbling into the microphone, and playing droney loops on a portable synth. It’s not a long set—Joe told me they had only four songs ready, though I’m not really sure when each one starts or ends, and all in all they’re on for about twenty minutes. At some point, while a feedback loop is still playing, Andy stands up from behind the drumset, walks to the bar, and chugs a bottle of water. Then the loop tapers off, stops, and everyone claps. Well, Patrick and I do, along with Marie and Travie and Laura and the generously pierced green-haired girl who I’m guessing is Andy’s new girlfriend—the other patrons mostly look confused.

Actually, another couple of guys are clapping, and when I look at them I recognize an old friend of Joe’s, from our hardcore days, and—fuck. Tim. 

Tim is here. I haven’t seen him in at least two years, and it’s a head trip. He looks good, with shorter hair and not-too-well-groomed stubble, like a real adult—I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing about me. Probably not, my hair is as bad as it ever was. When I go in for a manly shoulder-squeeze, he laughs and pulls me into a serious hug that seems to last forever and eases some of the tightness in my chest. It’s just—seeing him is a reminder of the way it all went to hell. Which is why I’ve been avoiding him, even though it’s not his fault that I have band PTSD, or whatever. 

We catch up—Tim has a girlfriend and a band that is doing pretty well, I have no girlfriend and a record store that is not—and then he says, “Oh, by the way, did you hear that Chris is back?”

I did—I’ve known this since I saw that the asshole blogger reviewing Patrick’s record was using Chris’ old AIM nickname. This piece of information has been crawling through my mind for days, and somehow I blocked it out, and now that I am confronted with it, well. I nod, ask Tim if he wants a drink, and then I don’t _stop_ drinking until Patrick removes me from the barstool.

He comes up to me, first, to ask me if I’m okay, and I’m not sure what he sees when I just look at him wordlessly—the sick feeling under my skin somehow made visible on my face, maybe, or the way I’m shivering with cold even though in the bar it’s muggy and hot—but in any case, he takes my hand and drags me outside and sits me down on the pavement. I don’t know when he got so good at recognizing the signs of an impending breakdown—it’s probably the multiple times he’s had to watch me fall into pieces over the past few months. 

(I need to buy him so many records. So many.)

He sits with me, our sides touching, and I lean into him, drop my head on his shoulder, and shake and shake. 

“You want to talk about it?” he asks skeptically. 

And I know I shouldn’t. I’m really drunk, and I might regret this tomorrow, but I think I kind of need to. 

***

So I tell Patrick about the band breaking up, and Chris leaving—my best friend leaving—and how after Heather broke up with me I got on an overnight bus to visit him for the weekend, because that’s what you do after a break-up, right? Step one—you go out with your best friend; step two—he gets you so drunk that you can’t remember what you were so sad about. So we started drinking, and I told him how Heather thought I was gay, or bi, or whatever, and how fucking confused that made me, and then we drank some more, and came back to his place and passed out in his bed. And then I woke up at some point, very early in the morning, and Chris was—

I thought it was a prank, or that he was still out of it or he thought I was sleeping, I don’t know. I thought he’d stop, like, I was so sure it was just…a mistake, a joke, something. It was so surreal. He had his dick out, right against me, and like—we were used to sleeping like this, half-naked, unselfconscious, from years of sleepovers at each other’s houses, of crashing together on friends’ couches and guest beds, from summers of touring and sleeping in a puppy pile in the back of a van. Things happen, but you turn the other way, laugh it off. And now he was taking all of that and drenching it in kerosene and striking a match, and I wanted to ask him _why the fuck he was doing this_ , but my voice was stuck in my chest. I should have pushed him out of the bed, thrown my elbow back into his stomach, but I just couldn’t move. I had this thought at the back of my mind that if things escalated, Chris was stronger than me and I didn’t want it to get uglier—but like, how much uglier could it really get?—and then something flipped, I wasn’t frozen anymore, and I jumped out of that bed, grabbed my backpack and my phone and the first clothes I could find and got the fuck out. He yelled something at me, like _what’s your fucking problem_ and _it’s not like I’m the one who’s gay_ and I—just got out of there, got on the first bus home, read _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay_ cover to cover, and never talked to him again.

Now he’s back in Chicago, apparently, and by the way, Patrick—he was the one who ripped your album to shreds on his stupid scenester blog. 

***

Patrick takes my confession in perfect silence, just puts his arm around my shoulders and holds me as I speak, and when I’m done, he takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. He’s shaking too, faintly. I am all out of words, all out of everything, I just want to go home. I tell him as much. He says he’s going to call a cab, his voice tight, and for a second I wonder if he’s angry at me. I guess he’d have a reason—he just came out to have a good time and I ambushed him with my stupid drama. 

He opens his mouth to speak, but in that moment the bar doors open, a cheerful mix of music and drunk chattering bursting through along with Joe and a couple of familiar faces. Whatever Patrick was going to say, he stops—sensing, accurately, that if anyone else tries to address me right now I will freak the fuck out—and immediately stands, offering a hand to help me up. I think Joe looks at us. I think Patrick just shakes his head at him and starts walking us toward the street corner. It feels like all the drinks I gulped down earlier hit at once, and I make some pitiful sound and lean against a wall as everything starts spinning. If I don’t throw up, or fall down, or spiral away, it’s only because Patrick hasn’t let go of my hand. 

~

I wake up with a splitting headache—I blame the alcohol just as much as the painful reminder of oversharing and getting my feelings all over the place, as per usual. I kind of want to stay in bed and hide from the world all day, but I know Patrick has birthday lunch plans with his dad, and for some reason I can’t bear the idea of finally rolling out of bed mid-afternoon just to find him gone. 

He’s already up, all tousled hair and crooked glasses, poking at a coffee filter as if it personally offended him. He looks up at me and starts to say, “Hey, good morning. So, um—” but I catch his eye and shake my head, and he trails off. 

I join him at the counter to take over the coffee-making process, bumping my shoulder softly into his. “Morning,” I say. I’m whispering, like a spy in a bugged apartment. I bite back the _sorry_ that’s already on the tip of my tongue. “It’s okay. It’s just—I don’t know. I never told anyone before. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, okay. But if you ever need to talk...” 

I nod, and he sits down but still watches me, his eyes as clear and calm as the lake. “I’m glad you told me.”

“Me too.” Kind of. On the other hand, I’d really like to invent time travel and go back to before I told him or, like, obliviate him. But since magic isn’t real, and I’m not a mad genius inventor—“Oh. Happy birthday!”

Patrick scrunches up his face and lets me change the subject. “Whatever.”

“Don’t _whatever_ me. Your existence in this world is reason to celebrate. In fact, I have something for you.”

“Is it coffee?” Patrick asks hopefully.

“Okay, that first, and then I’ll give you your gift when you’re actually awake.”

The _Lost in Translation_ soundtrack album has been hidden in my closet for weeks now, and I’m not a very patient person at the best of times, so while Patrick’s busy burying his face in his precious first cup of coffee of the day, I get the record and come back, setting it on the table in front of him with a flourish. It is even gift wrapped, assuming a paper bag stolen from my own record store counts as gift wrapping. 

Patrick takes it out from the bag and stares at it without saying anything, and okay, maybe I messed up. “I thought—remember how we talked about this? And you liked the Prince cover, and it’s not super easy to find, so—”

“No, no, I remember. I just—wasn’t expecting this. I love it. Thank you.”

“Oh, good. There’s a story to go with it, but it’s a bit sad, but also funny. Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course you have a story,” Patrick says, and smiles at me until his eyes crinkles at the corners. “I bet it’s a good one, too. Yeah, I want to hear it.”

So we take our coffee to the other room, we put on the record, and I tell him everything I remember about Sam with his expensive house and his ex-boyfriend with great music taste and terrible ethics, and we both wish Sam well and hope he never takes that asshole back, and then Patrick asks me why I didn’t take all those amazing records, and I make noises about it not feeling right, and he says, “Idiot,” but I can tell he actually means something less harsh. Maybe.

Later, we leave the house together—he’s going to meet his dad and I have hanging-out plans with Travie—and as we’re standing outside our building, headed in opposite directions, we hesitate. It feels as if we need more time—as if we’re supposed to spend the day together instead. We say the proper things, _I’ll see you later_ and _say hi to your dad for me_ , but then we falter, as if there’s something else that we’re not saying, though I really couldn’t tell what it could possibly be. Somehow, saying goodbye is weird, even though we’re going to meet again in just a few hours for the party, which Patrick’s label set up in some nightclub, a gaudy place none of us would normally be caught dead in. 

So we stand there for a long moment, not knowing what to do with ourselves, until Patrick narrows his eyes and says, “Hey, is that my hat?”

“Um, yeah? Sorry. You need it back?”

He looks at me consideringly, then his lips curl into a truly wicked smile. “You know what? Keep it. I’ll just steal something of yours. And I won’t tell you.”

“Patrick!” I exclaim in alarm.

“You’ll never see it coming!” he singsongs, walking away. 

~

Strings of blue fairy lights surround the main entrance of the club, and inside there are actual waiters in actual all-black uniforms serving weak drinks that would be horribly overpriced if they weren’t free, and I just know the sound system is accustomed to blaring dance music—and absolutely not the good kind. Patrick got Laura hired as the official photographer of the event and Travie got in as her plus one. We were planning to take advantage of the free drinks, but Patrick won’t touch any alcohol before a performance—or food, for that matter—and I’m still hungover from last night, so in the end the night is turning out to be far less wild than expected. 

Patrick’s friend Greta is here, too—her band just came off tour and she’s going to play with him tonight. She’s tiny, with long blonde hair and a dainty dress, and she might be the most intimidating eighteen-year-old I’ve ever met. When Patrick introduces us, she looks at me critically, and we have a brief, cryptic conversation that on the surface appears to be about what I think of Patrick’s album but in actual fact is—I think—about whether I appreciate him an adequate amount. I try to communicate that I think he’s perfect and brilliant and golden, but I’m not sure I succeed. It’s not an easy thing to express subliminally. Then she and Patrick sit close together and have an intense whispered exchange, while I allow one of the uniformed waiters to pour me one glass of something bubbly that isn’t champagne but is close enough, and Travie and I clink glasses and pretend we’re in the _Great Gatsby_. 

At some point, Greta looks at her phone and then tells Patrick they’re up in twenty-five minutes, that she’s going to check everything is in order. The club is huge, but a smaller area in front of a low stage has been closed off with tall black cloth partitions, and people are filling up most of the space by now. Patrick stands up, looking paler than usual, and says he’s going to get some air. Travie looks at me pointedly and I stand up, too. I wouldn’t say Patrick is freaking out. But I wouldn’t say he’s _not_ freaking out either. I tell him I’m going with him, and Travie adds, “Give me a second to find Laura, I’ll be right there.” 

Outside, Patrick stops a few paces from the back door, rests his back against the wall and looks up, not meeting my eyes. 

“You know I used to have stage fright? Like—really bad.” He’s speaking so softly that I need to get closer to hear him clearly. “I got over it, mostly, but tonight… I don’t know, those people inside, they’re not even fans—assuming I have any—they’re journalists and bloggers and other musicians who hate me and—” 

We’re standing so close that I barely have to move when I reach up and curl my hand around the back of his neck. The nervous flow of words stops, and his eyes come down to meet mine for a second, then rest a bit lower. “Patrick, stop. First of all, you have your number one fan right here. Also, you’re going to kill it. You always do. And if anyone dares say anything bad about you, I’m pretty sure Greta’s gonna disembowel them. So.”

Our faces are a hairbreadth apart, so I can’t really decipher his expression, but I see his mouth curling into a smile. “She’s pretty scary, huh?” His forehead bumps softly into mine as his arms come up to wrap around my shoulders loosely. “Thank you, I think I’m done freaking out now.”

“Good.” I lean back a bit so I can look at him without my eyes crossing, but neither of us lets go of the other. There’s a smile pulling at my lips; warm skin and the impossibly soft baby hair at the back of his neck under my palm; we look at each other and share the same oxygen for a few breaths. Then his eyes get a bit darker, and he whispers my name, as if—

Then the back door bangs open and noise from the inside of the club crashes onto us. We both jump, I take a step back and turn my head toward the intrusion by instinct. It’s Travie, who I’d honestly forgotten all about, and behind him a couple of other guys I don’t know, laughing and red-faced, and—of fucking course, Chris. 

I swallow something bitter, feel my body lock up. From the doorway, Chris notices me watching him, and he meets my eyes, stone-faced, nods in acknowledgement. I flinch hard and look away. 

Patrick doesn’t miss any part of this, of course, and gets it at once. “Is that _him_?” he asks calmly.

“Yeah.” 

Travie is at our side by now, and Patrick tells him, “Stay with him,” _him_ being me, and he stalks the few paces that separate us from the laughing and raucous little group. He taps on Chris’ shoulder from behind. I watch, my hands shaking, as Chris turns and looks down at him—he’s a full head taller, makes Patrick look like a little kid. 

“Chris, right?” he asks, and while Chris is still nodding, wearing a puzzled frown, Patrick throws back his arm and punches him hard in the jaw. Chris makes a hurt noise and slides down on the pavement—too drunk or too surprised to react, or both. Patrick is just standing there, kind of vibrating, fists clenched at his sides and looking down at Chris slumped at his feet. 

It was all so fast that no one says anything, everyone just staring in shock—we were never a violent bunch really, even in our younger and wilder days people coldcocking each other outside clubs was really not our scene—until Travie stands up, saying, “Shit.” He stalks up to Patrick, grabs his arm and starts pulling him away—though Patrick’s not exactly resisting, just glaring hard at Chris, his jaw working under the skin, looking as if he’d like nothing better than to have another go. 

“Let’s get out of here, come on,” Travie says urgently, pulling harder at his arm, and Patrick finally turns away, shakes out his hand. We all look at each other, all of us faintly stunned, and we realize we can’t really go anywhere, because Patrick is still supposed to play. Because this is _his own fucking release party_. 

The other guys are huddled together around Chris, who’s rubbing at his jaw and muttering resentfully—I wonder what bullshit he’s telling them. The risk of retaliation seems low, anyway. So we go back inside. 

As soon as we step in the club again, Greta immediately pounces and starts tugging Patrick off toward the stage, scolding him all the while: “Where the _fuck_ have you been, we need to go on _now_ , now, ten minutes ago, come _on_!” Patrick lets himself be dragged away bodily, throwing me one last look that I can’t begin to interpret.

Travie and I watch them go, then stand in a stunned silence for a couple of minutes. Or ten. “Okay,” Travie says eventually. “Explain to me what the fuck that was about?” 

“Wish I could, man,” I say, and I suddenly feel like laughing, so I do. “I guess Patrick was defending my honor?” 

“Since when do you need defending? Hold on—since when do you have any _honor_ left?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know—”

We’re interrupted by the club music turning off, and clapping and whooping starting up as Patrick and Greta take the stage. We get closer, until we’re standing in the first few rows, on the side. Patrick changed, and he’s wearing—oh, my button-down denim shirt. Well, he did tell me he’d steal something from me as payback for his hat. And he managed to find what’s probably the most expensive item in my closet, too, a ridiculously indulgent purchase I made on an NYC trip. You know the type—you’re far from home, in a city where no one knows you and thus it’s been a while since anyone’s reminded you just how much of a dork you really are, so that you’re almost starting to convince yourself you are kind of cool—which is when you pass by a designer store that looks vintage but isn’t, the kind of store that has a signature CD compilation and a signature fragrance, staffed by salespeople who’re attractive as models and kind as fairy godmothers, and you don’t come back to your senses until you’re back on the street, smelling very good and in possession of a two-hundred-dollar shirt. That kind of purchase. And even under the shitty club lighting, I can tell that the light indigo color pairs perfectly with his eyes, and I know right away that I’m never getting that shirt back, it looks way too good on him. He cuffed the sleeves, so it must be a bit big on him. I am so distracted by this fact that I barely listen as he speaks into the mic, thanking everyone for coming and—dutifully—the label for organizing everything, and starts to play _Porcelain_. 

Between the drama and abrupt violence, I almost forgot that Patrick was freaking out about playing, but as it turns out, I was right—he totally kills it. I’ve seen him play a couple of times by now, plus all the private shows I get at home of course, but he’s always been on his own. He and Greta play off each other wonderfully, and maybe it’s having someone else to fall back on, or the fact that he’s more comfortable with the new songs, but he looks different tonight, bolder and intense and self-assured. I look around for a second and it seems to me like almost everyone shares my issue of not being able to take my eyes off him.

All too soon, Greta’s stepping off the stage after going up to kiss Patrick on the cheek. Patrick flushes and waves her away, saying, “Greta Morgan, everyone—please give her a big applause, and also check out her album, it’s amazing.” Then he pauses, fiddles with his acoustic, and says, “As some of you know, I have a thing about covers, and to wrap things up here tonight I wanted to try out a new one... I realize this is not a particularly original choice, but sometimes you need to turn to the classics. Thank you all very much for coming. Oh, and buy my album, I guess, it came out today! Well, if you want. Okay, this is—” he lowers his eyes, and grins, as if he’s laughing at himself, “this is for my number one fan.” 

And then he looks up and straight into my eyes, and he starts playing _Hallelujah_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Scene description: Pete tells Patrick about some attempted non-con sexual activity that happened to him in the past, at Chris’ hands, back when Pete thought Chris was his best friend. Patrick’s response can be summed up as protective and murderous.]
> 
> ***  
> The hugest thanks to [andwhatyousaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andwhatyousaid/pseuds/andwhatyousaid) for her utterly brilliant and thoughtful feedback on this chapter, and to [Fluffy_Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffy_Stuff/works) for providing her awesome beta skills.


	9. The Night Starts Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW for recreational drug use (edibles)
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKzlFAFuHnQ) is, more or less, the concert they go to.

The weekend starts as soon as we close up on Friday. Patrick’s been hanging out at the store for a couple of hours, and he’s just been made aware of the plan. This is what he wants to know: “But _why_? Why would we stay up all night? Why can’t we go to sleep, wake up, and go to the concert like normal people?”

“Because we would just sleep in and we’d never be able to drag Joe out of bed and we would end up not going at all. Also, it’s a tradition.”

“True,” Travie confirms. “That’s what you do when there’s a _matinée_. It’s the rule.” 

“A morning performance,” I translate. Patrick arches an eyebrow, looks at me like, _oh really?_ Joe and Travie look on and snicker like schoolboys for some mysterious reason. (It’s not mysterious. They keep getting in digs at me, or trying to. They share knowing glances, winks, and I’m pretty sure they have a bet going. And as much as I pretend not to, I know exactly what they’re implying, and what’s worse, they have a point. It’s whatever changed after the release party; it’s the way I can’t stop thinking about him singing _Hallelujah_ to me; it’s Patrick in the kitchen this very morning, fighting a smile as he gave me shit about about all the sugar I was putting in my coffee, then ducking his head and looking at me through his lashes; it’s me forgetting what we were even play-fighting about.) 

“I know what a _matinée_ is,” Patrick’s saying now. “My French is pretty decent, actually.” He hums, thinking, then recites, slowly, with perfect pronunciation as far as I can tell: “ _J’aim’ra beaucoup t’prendre soin tous tes jours, mon ange._ ”

“Um—Isn’t that—” My mouth has suddenly gone dry.

“Kerouac,” Patrick confirms.

“Oh. Since when do you—”

“Just found it lying around at home,” Patrick shrugs. 

At this point Joe really cracks up, and when I turn to side-eye him he has his face mashed into Travie’s chest. “What’s your fucking problem?”

“Uh, nothing, Travie was telling me about—”

“The brownies.”

“Right, the _brownies_.” Sometimes it’s better to just let it go, with those two. And anyway, I figure—Patrick’s going to get over it, and we can go back to being best friends (sorry, Travie), and I can jerk off in the shower until the water runs cold, and no one’s going to get hurt. I’m not getting involved with my roommate. Again. You can’t keep making the same mistakes, not even I am that stupid. 

In any case, after we stop by the bar for a couple of pre-dinner beers, Patrick seems to get on board with the plan; in fact, once he decides he’s in, he’s all in, and my conscience decides to show its face. We’re sitting close together in our usual corner booth, squashed between the wall and Joe’s pointy elbows. “Is this really wise, though?” I ask him. “You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Pete, I’m fucking—twenty-three years old, I’m not supposed to be wise, what the fuck,” he says, punctuating the sentence by slamming on the table my beer that he’s just stolen. “I’ve made _good choices_ since I was in junior high, it’s like—I can do some crazy shit once in a while, right?”

“I mean, yeah,” I concede. I’m not even sure why I’ve been trying to dissuade him. “Who am I to tell you not to do crazy shit, it’s my area of expertise, just ask anyone.”

“Yeah, I’m leaving for tour tomorrow, and tonight I want to stay up with you and eat Joe’s magic brownies and get no sleep and go see a jazz concert in the morning. I don’t care, I’ll worry about tomorrow _tomorrow_. Just—let me have this, okay?” 

He looks at me, eyes twinkling, a slight blush on his cheeks, impossibly pink lips, and honestly—I don’t see how I could possibly say no to anything he asked of me right now. “You got it,” I say around a smile. “Let’s have another drink.”

So we have another drink. Well, a few. And that’s where the night actually starts, I think.

There’s a drawn-out dinner at the Chinese place near Travie’s—more beer, too much beer, the conversation getting more and more surreal: Laura trying to explain long exposure to Patrick, as Joe and Travie debate the merits of New Order over Depeche Mode, and I finally ask Marie if she can drop by our place when she has a moment and help me move the too-tall coat rack. 

We’re wobbly as we calculate how to split the cheque, wobbly as we pour ourselves on the pavement outside and decide to hole up at Travie’s for the night. “No sleeping, though,” we remind each other, noisy and unruly, still loitering in front of the restaurant. “No sleeping!”

Later, we’re scattered between Travie’s couch and fluffy rug, _The Lost Boys_ playing on the projector, the third or maybe fourth in a marathon of vampire movies. We’re done with alcohol and someone’s made the switch to coffee already. Not Patrick, though—his head keeps dropping on my shoulder, and I am so tempted to pull him closer into my side and just let him doze off. We could skip the concert, and just stay here, on Travie’s exceptionally comfortable couch. I’m sure those fuckers, after laughing their asses off at us, would even deign to drape a blanket on our legs. 

Patrick’s head falls on my shoulder once again, and this time it stays down. He’s sitting close against me, his thigh pressed against mine. I feel too hot, his body heat seeping into my skin through two layers of denim, impossibly, like electricity. I shake him gently awake, and he makes a noise like an angry kitten. Something like, “Mmrg!” 

“Hey, Patrick, hey. Want to go have a nap? I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go.” His eyes crack open, and he sits back, sneaking a glance to where Joe and Travie are talking too loudly and laughing too hard at the movie in a boisterous show of masculinity and wakefulness. “They’re not gonna judge. And if they try, they’re going to regret it.”

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Just a little nap.” He gets up from the couch, and looks at me expectantly. “Coming?”

I don’t think I could sleep right now, but I keep that to myself and follow him to the bedroom, which isn’t an actual room but a corner of the loft hidden behind a wall-to-ceiling bookcase holding art books and spray paint cans in every human-perceivable shade of color. Patrick puts his glasses on the nightstand, toes off his shoes and stretches out over the bedspread while I get a light blanket from the chair next to the bed. I sit down and tuck it around his shoulders, debating with myself about the wisdom of lying down next to him as I watch the dark sky outside the window. It could be dangerous. Then again, it probably wouldn’t hurt, just for a few minutes. 

“You’re zoning out,” Patrick mumbles. He sounds half-asleep, which is far more awake than I thought he was. “I know you like pretending you never sleep like Batman or something, but you’re tired, so just—c’mere. I’m not going to—”

“What?”

“Nothing. C’mon. What time is it?” he asks, pulling lightly on the sleeve of my hoodie. I’m sure he’s not putting a lot of effort in it, but it feels like an irresistible force all the same.

“Like four?” I say, and he’s right, as he tends to be—I am tired, and we do have a bit of time. I let him pull me down and, since I’m already here, since it’s kind of cold for May, I cuddle close, facing him. Patrick hums, shuts his eyes, lets go of my hoodie and his hand falls on my side, right above my hip. My shirt is riding up, half twisted around my chest, which means his palm rests on my bare skin, warm, warm. I can hardly breathe, let alone fall asleep, so I just watch him. I could go back to the others, but I don’t want to dislodge Patrick’s hand, disturb him. He looks like a kid, slightly open mouth, smooth forehead, soft-looking hair. Not a kid, though, as he’s been proving since the day he moved into my place. I feel younger than him, sometimes, with my life going in random disparate directions, stuck in a career I didn’t choose, my only significant relationship in the past few years being someone’s bit on the side. 

It’s lucky that Laura comes in before I can work myself into a proper anxiety attack. She looks at the occupied bed and whispers, “I wanted a nap, too. Should I leave you two alone?”

I shake my head, take Patrick’s hand in mine and set it down on the bed carefully, sitting up. “Take my spot, I can’t fall asleep anyway.” I allow myself a few more seconds of Patrick-watching. 

“You need to talk about—this?” Laura asks, even as she’s yawning. 

“What’s there to say? Nothing’s going to happen,” I whisper. “I really can’t fuck this up.” 

“Don’t fuck it up, then,” she says softly. 

I choke on a laugh, put my face in my hands. “I don’t know how.”

She hums, comes closer to put a hand on my shoulder. “You could try. I mean—I would, if I had someone looking at me like that.”

“You do though.”

“Yeah,” she smiles. “Notice how I didn’t fuck it up?”

Patrick stirs, and we both freeze, but then he just sighs and smushes his face in the pillow, clearly not waking up yet, just settling deeper into sleep. I stand up from the bed so that Laura can take my place. “Thank you for making me talk about my feelings. Joe would have run away and Travie would have laughed in my face. Get your nap now.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep an eye on your boy.”

She means it half-sweetly, half-ironically, I know, but my stomach drops. I lock myself in the bathroom and watch my face in the mirror as my emotions get the best of me. _Your boy_. If I could call Patrick _mine_ , it would be—but see, that’s exactly the issue here. I’m possessive and obsessive and I need to keep this shit _well away_ from him. We’re so good at being friends and I’m such a disaster at relationships. I just need to keep it together until this blows over.

I get a grip on myself, as well as I can, and open the door. Obviously, everyone stares at me as soon as I emerge from the bathroom—well, Joe and Travie do. Marie, who fell asleep twisted like a pretzel in Travie’s asymmetrical designer armchair, startles awake and just looks around in confusion. 

“Okay, man?” Travie asks, and I nod firmly. Pretend long enough, and it becomes true, right? 

“Awesome,” Joe says, and then, pointing toward the kitchen: “Shall we?” 

Why the hell not. We put more coffee on and cut the brownies, still warm from the oven. I let Travie wake Laura and Patrick up, and then we all have breakfast around the paint-splattered farm table in Travie’s kitchen as the sky outside is just starting to lighten, giggly and overtired like toddlers on a sugar high. 

And then we wait.

It doesn’t happen until we’re standing outside the auditorium—we got here early, probably because if we’d spent another second cooped up inside we were going to start climbing the exposed-brick walls of Travie’s loft—queueing alongside a small crowd of people who are all noticeably older, richer and more sober than us. It’s around ten in a perfect Spring morning, the sun is shining and doubtlessly showing in detail every wrinkle and stain on the clothes I’ve been wearing for twenty-hours, the rings around my eyes, my wild hair. Patrick keeps smoothing down my bangs and his fingers in my hair feel so good that I’d like to just close my eyes and let him pet me like a cat for hours in the middle of the street—which is about when I realize that the weed is kicking in. 

Luckily, the doors open and every one of us manages to locate and show our tickets to the ushers—a minor miracle, it has to be said, because immediately after that, in the dark foyer, as the well-adjusted members of society around us entrust their jackets to the coat check persons, we exchange glances and start laughing like hyenas at whatever we see on each other’s faces. Patrick has stopped trying to fix my hair but he hasn’t left my side, and honestly, I’m half out of my mind with tiredness and half completely high, so I think I can be forgiven for slipping an arm around his waist and just holding on. 

We find our seats—another small miracle, as we almost lose Laura to her intense fascination with the tiny brass placard marked H, which is not our row. As I finally sink in the red velvet seat, for a second I’m genuinely afraid it will swallow me up. I gasp and reach out and Patrick takes my hand without hesitating, no questions asked, no comments on my temporary insanity. We wait for the concert to start in near-silence, interspersed with muffled giggling. I hope they don’t kick us out, after all this trouble.

Later, we’ll note how the guitar sounded almost post-rock and the percussionist was probably superhuman and Joe will tell us all about his Proustian madeleine experience with a specific klezmer-style melody, but in the moment, what happens is we listen speechlessly, each one of us prisoner of their own spaced-out brain, and watch the game of lights on the stage with childlike wonder, and the performance seems to last for a second and also for all eternity, until it’s over and I’m still holding Patrick’s hand. The lights come on and we blink, no one quite knowing what to say. We follow the normal people along the aisles, trusting them to know the way out of this impossible labyrinth, until we emerge again into the daylight, lost and bewildered as newborn chicks. The weather must have changed while we were inside—how long _did_ the concert last?—and the sky is gray now, the air strangely cold, a drizzle falling. 

“Dude, it’s raining,” Joe says, a few times, to which Travie answers in turn, “Dude, I know.” 

Marie and Laura are hugging or else falling asleep on each other standing up. We hang around for a few minutes like extras from a Romero movie, until Patrick says, “So this was an interesting experience, but I, like, really need to sleep now.” He sways on his feet, I reach out to steady him and my arm stays around his waist, and he curls into my side and looks up at me from the couple of inches that separate us. “Take me home?” he asks, and despite everything I know it’s not a line, and despite everything I wish for a second that it was. 

“Yeah, let’s get a cab.” I don’t lean away as I get my mobile out of my pocket, and he doesn’t step back; I make my call and then we just stay there under the light rain, tired and tongue-tied. Worn out, I think, both by this endless night and the way we’ve been resisting this. The raindrops fall on Patrick’s glasses, making them fog up, and I think that I’m not ready to kiss him, because when I do, I’m not going to stop. 

We don’t even say goodbye, just wave vaguely toward the others and slip inside the car as soon as it pulls over. Inside, it’s warm and dry—it’s nice to be out of the rain, and it’s nice to have Patrick pressed against my side, his hair tickling my neck and smelling strangely like honey. The driver is listening to some oldies station, Donny Hathaway playing softly, and Patrick hums along, as if he can’t help from singing even in his sleep. Then the humming turns into words. “Pete?” he murmurs. “I feel weird.” 

“Bad weird? Like, sick?”

“No, just weird.”

“It’s okay, you just need to sleep it off.” What I can’t help is kissing his hair, the side of his forehead. It feels less real when he’s not looking at me. “Come on, we’re almost home.”

It’s like I’m wading through molasses as I pay the driver, get Patrick out of the car and into our building. If I were alone, I think I would just plop down on the hall floor, take a break before facing the stairs, but Patrick’s clinging to me and I somehow find it in myself to drag the both of us to our floor and inside our apartment. Then I drop Patrick on his bed as gently as I can, ask him, “How d’you feel?”

“Still weird,” he says, fighting with his belt as his eyes try to close. “Stay with me?”

Fuck it, this wouldn’t even be the first time we shared a bed _today_. 

˜

When I open my eyes again, no light is coming in through the curtains, and I don’t have any idea what time, or even part of the day it is. We’ve drifted closer while we slept, facing each other, our heads so near we’re almost sharing a pillow. The darkness might be natural or artificial, but that doesn’t make this any less intimate—the silent apartment, our overlong day and night bleeding into one another, and the two of us in a bubble of blackness. His knee brushes against my thigh and I inhale sharply. When Patrick opens his eyes they’re wide, glistening in the dark, and when he opens his mouth to speak his lower lip is shiny, too, and before I know it my hand is clutching the back of his neck, his fingers are knotted in my t-shirt, and we’re kissing. It’s not me kissing him and neither it’s him kissing me; I think we simply stopped resisting at the same time. You know that first-kiss feeling, like nothing’s aligned quite right, and your noses are in the way, and there’s a bit more teeth than the ideal amount? Yeah, this kiss is nothing like that. It’s fucking perfect. Sweet bordering on agonizing, and it’s just lips brushing against lips. As soon as Patrick slips me some tongue I’m going to lose any ability to think, desire to breathe, et cetera. Either I’m stronger than I thought, or an even bigger idiot, ‘cause I manage to break the kiss. I’m already breathing hard, and I gasp out: “Patrick, wait, we can’t.”

He relaxes his hold on my shirt without letting go, watching me, and visibly braces himself before asking, “Why?”

Everything revolts against the idea of rejecting him. I think that’s why I can’t really look him in the eye; also, now that I know what it feels like to kiss him, not doing it is proving very hard. “Fuck, where do I even start—I’m a mess, and you’re perfect.”

“Oh my god.” I think that’s disbelief painted on his face. With maybe more than a trace amount of irritation. “Where do _I_ start with that, let’s see—I haven’t had a relationship since I graduated high school because I have trust issues the size of fucking Lake Michigan after my mom cheated on my dad and my first girlfriend cheated on me. I didn’t even know I was queer until Greta pointed it out to me, that’s how _in touch_ I am with my emotions. Or, wait wait, this one is good—” he sits up, finally letting go of me to wave his hand around, scoffing, “—because like, despite all the cheating, I thought I wasn’t the jealous type, I thought I had _that_ going for me at least, you know? And then you come home with a hickey and I want to _fucking set fire to Mikey’s house_. Is this imperfect enough for you?”

I try to interject something, but I feel like _That’s fucking_ hot _is what it is_ isn’t what he wants to hear, so all I can say is, “ _Patrick_ ,” which isn’t enough to stop the deluge.

“And _you._ You’re—messy, okay. You’re intense and impulsive and you don’t think before you jump, and you keep a running list of people who’ve broken your heart and you still do it all over again, because—”

“Because I’m an idiot?”

“—shut _up_ , god, because you don’t lose hope, and you don’t give up, even when anyone would, and I think that’s—”

“Stupid?”

“So fucking _brave_ , you asshole. Oh and another thing. You’re not a good actor, like, at all, and I know you want me, someway, but you’re telling yourself you’re, what? _Protecting_ me? You realize what a dick move that is, right, how _condescending_ it is?”

I figure this is what being stoned to death feels like. Metaphorically. I try to regain some dignity by sitting up, since I’ve been literally taking this utter thrashing lying down. “Wow, okay. Glad you’re feeling better, I guess. You’re done insulting me now?”

“For now,” Patrick allows, glaring. “And yeah, I feel fine.”

“Okay, good, I’m going to make my case now. You’re right, but you’re wrong.”

The glare turns into a frown. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” 

“You’re right that you’re not perfect, nobody is, it’s a stupid thing to say and a stupid amount of pressure to put on anyone, but—you still are. Perfect. To me. And you’re right, too, that I want you, but you’re wrong because I don’t want you _someway_.” He just stares at me, then, and I watch his throat work, and well, we both already know I have poor impulse control, don’t we? “See, the thing is—I’ve never wanted anyone this way.”

And now that I’ve started, well, I realize I have an entire declaration of love and devotion waiting on the tip of my tongue—clearly it’s been there for a while, unbeknown to me, ready to go—a top five list of Patrick’s perfect imperfections, starting from the way his mere presence brings out the best in me; I’m willing to confess I am a protective asshole, yes indeed, but it’s alright ‘cause he’s just as bad as me, he’s been taking care of me instinctively since day one anyway, singing me to sleep, listening to my relationship drama with no judgement, punching in the face somebody he didn’t even know, and lastly, getting wasted and pulling an all-nighter to spend time with me before leaving for tour— “Oh fuck, you’re leaving, you’re going to be late!”

Patrick grabs me by the shirt once again and pulls me in, until we’re so close I can feel his breath on my lips as he says, “I can’t begin to express just how much I don’t give a fuck about anything that is not you kissing me right now.”

So I kiss him. And kiss him, and kiss him. And then he leaves, and he’s a little bit late, because we can’t seem to stop kissing until he’s physically out the door, rumpled and wild-haired and smiling and so fucking beautiful. I watch him go, barely able to stand it, and then I stand in the middle of our living room, stunned and hungover, and I realize I never got to say my piece. So I get my laptop, and open a new email, and I start writing. _yes i know you can speak french, one of your many hidden talents i’m sure, but allow me to translate freely this one time. i’d really like to take care of you every one of your days, my angel._


End file.
